The tape had ended fifteen seconds ago, but I'm too engrossed in Narcissa's story to notice or care. "What happened next?" I press. "What did you do? How did you feel?"

     "Oh, I was absolutely mortified!" says Narcissa, a delicate petal hand feeling for the teardrop pendant under her dress. "I was still very much in love with Bas and pushed Lucius away immediately."

     "And?"

     Her eyebrows twitched upwards. "Well, it's safe to say he didn't take that well at all. We were both quite stunned for a moment, and then he just got up and left."

     "He didn't take the cheque with him, I hope."

    "No, no. I went to Gringotts the very next day— Saturday, it was. I then took all the money to Slughorn, who had only been more than glad to donate the money for me. I figured it was so he could appear more solicitous to the Minister for Magic."

     I take out the reels and wind them carefully back up. "At least that was managed, then. Mrs. Malfoy, forgive me if this is rude, but do you think Mr. Malfoy actually had a change of heart?"

     Narcissa opens her mouth to answer when, as if on cue, the door opens and Lucius strides in, silver-ended cane striking the cold marble floor in a fury. "I've had enough of that boy!" he raged. "What? What happened?" Narcissa asks.

     "He's gone into one of his tantrums again, started shouting at me for Merlin-knows-what! If it hadn't been for that court order, why, I would've—"

     "Lucius." Narcissa inclines her head at me. Lucius suddenly notices that I'm still here and quietens himself. I sense it's my cue to go and stuff the reels into my satchel so hurriedly that they strain against the leather at odd angles.

     At the door, Lucius stops me. "About the book," he says. "I know some people who might just be interested in it. Publishers, lawyers, distributors. I'd like for you to meet them."

     "Um— thank you, Mr. Malfoy, but I haven't actually given it much thought yet. I'm not sure if a book is the best way to go about this, especially since the Prophet's probably already going to do one as well."

     "Oh? With what material?"

     I cannot answer him. "And that's what my lawyers are for," he adds. "We'll all sit down for dinner some time. Perhaps in a week or so. I'll have to arrange it. I'll be in touch."

     "Mr. Malfoy?"

      He peeks out from behind the half-closed door. "Yes?"

     "Why me?"

     "Who, if not you?"

     "I mean, there're about two dozen journalists at the Prophet right now, and probably another dozen at the Quibbler. They're all twice as able and three times more eager to write your story. I'm— I'm just a girl."

     "And my son is just a boy," says Lucius. "And I'm just a man and my wife is just a woman."

     "No," I say. "You are the Malfoys. You're one of Britain's most renowned Wizarding families. I am just... a nobody."

     "In the end, we both want the same thing, do we not?"

     "And what is that?"

     "The truth."

     "Then why not just tell it to me? Why do you want me to publish a book?"

     "Will you do it or not?"

     A long moment of silence passes as I consider my options. It could go either way. The people might love the story and feel sorry for the Malfoys and regret having ever vilifying them so horribly; or they might feel manipulated into sympathising with murderers and the Malfoys would be done for, and I would be dragged down into oblivion with them. It would all depend on what the Malfoys really want to tell me. My future would depend on it. 

     "Alright," I say. "On one condition."

     I tell him my terms. He agrees with a curt nod and closes the door behind me, and once again I'm alone on their porch.

     As I'm about to Disapparate, a movement in my peripheral vision captures my attention. Draco's lanky figure leans against the pillar, flaxen hair windswept and unkempt. The wind chills me to the bone even with my jumper, coat, and scarf, but Draco's white shirt is half undone, the starched fabric revealing an elongated triangle of pearly bare skin. He lifts the bottle to his mouth and takes a long drawn-out swig. Our eyes lock. I turn away quickly, but it's too late.

     "What are you looking at, Ainsley?"

     I shut my eyes, and for a moment I'm alone on the porch with nothing but the glare of the blue sun behind my lids. I open them and he's there again. My ribbon chokes me as I speak. "Alright, Malfoy?"

     He nudges himself off the pillar and swaggers up to me, the bottle glinting as it swings from his loose grip. "Got what you wanted today?" he sneers. "What intriguing secrets did my parents spill? Do tell!"

     I tense as he eyes me up and down. He's dangerously close to me now. At the sight of the thousands of tiny goosebumps on his exposed chest, I instinctively unwind my scarf and hold it out to him.

     Draco takes one look at the burgundy wool and curls his lips into a snarl. "I don't need your generosity, Ainsley. I'm not a fucking charity case."

     "It's called human decency, Draco. Maybe you could learn a thing or two about it," I say, still holding out the scarf. He snatches it from my hands and flings it onto the floor where it unravels like a stream of blood against the white marble floor. "And maybe you could learn a thing or two about not being a backstabbing bitch."

     I want to reach out and touch him. The ribbon was so tight I thought it might snap. I loop my finger in it and swallow hard. He notices this. "Got a new accessory, have you?" he says. "All the better to whore yourself around the newsroom with? It's sad, honestly, you parading around with that — what are you, a fucking showhorse?" He tugs at it before I can stop him. The silky material slithers undone and flutters limply to the floor.

     The freezing air immediately tears through the once-concealed skin of my neck. I stand there, feeling like I have been stripped naked in front of a crowd. Draco's gaze flickers down to the bruise, then back at my face before he draws back, eyes widened in shock.

     I quickly gather myself, set down the recorder on the ground, and pick up the ribbon. "Wrong," I say a little too loudly as I fasten the strip back around my neck. "I'm a show cow, actually. Show horses have always seemed a little snooty to me, don't you think?"

     Draco is confounded into silence as I prop my collar higher and pick the recorder back up. The ribbon feels like a leash around my neck as I flash a quick smile at him. Without so much as a goodbye — because I knew he doesn't want one — I twist and Disapparate.

༻⚜༺

     The image of her bruise doesn't leave my mind for days. I think about it during class, doing homework, before I go to sleep, and after I wake. I think of it more than I should. I think of the strip of black silk that wrapped around her slender neck, and the ugly mix of purple and yellow that blooms under it; a tropical sunset dappled against snow.

     Still, my curiosity is mingled with a flickering hatred for her. She had been baiting my attention all along. That bruise could be easily concealed with spells and glamours, healed, even, if one knew the right spell. Instead, she chooses to wear a fucking ribbon, because then I might mock her and pull it. And just as she'd planned, I'd chomped on the bait so hard the hook had embedded itself in my brain.

     The Lake's serpentine shadows dance on the walls, waiting for me to break. I buried the heels of my palms into my eyes and tried to dispel her from my mind. I didn't want to see, hear, think. Feel.

     But like waves to the shore, it keeps coming and coming; flashes of scenes my mind projected: desperate gasping; semi-dried tear tracks on the peaks of her face, tainted charcoal by her eyeliner; pain. I knew it had hurt. She had hurt.

     Did someone force themselves onto her?

     Perhaps she had simply fallen. No, she wouldn't have hidden it with the ribbon. Gabriella Ainsley is the type who would carry the scar of an accident loudly and proudly. 

     She was always so fucking loud.

     And suddenly she isn't anymore. 

     Ever since that ribbon made its debut, she'd shrunken away from view, buried herself into a little corner where no one could find her; a splendid daughter of heaven who had her wings clipped — or ripped out — and sent plummeting to earth. To death. 

     I have seen enough during the war to know it was the handiwork of another person. A human being had taken their paintbrush to the milky canvas of her skin, marred it with their unholy fingers to create a sacrilegious portrait of violence.

     I think it was Montague. She doesn't hang around the other boys that much to have gotten into a violent scuffle with them. She's too well-liked.

     Anger surges like lightning every time I see him in the common room. His dark, soft hair and handsome face, the deceitful laughter. He'd always be the first to start up some banter with the other boys and he loves calling for me to join in the conversation. I always laugh along when what I really want to do is break his jaw. Every time the urge comes, I pull the silver palm-sized tin from my robes and sip.

     It quells neither the rage nor longing within me.

     She would be there, at the far end of the hallways, or at the Hufflepuff table, alone nowadays. Always alone. Yet, she never meets my eyes once. Why do none of her friends think to ask her why she wore that ribbon? Just one tug is all it would take, but that ribbon remains wrapped around her neck, now knotted tighter than ever since I had the absolute gall to undo it last weekend.

     A part of me wishes she would come up to me again, to plead her case once more. I want her to rip off that ribbon and force me to look at the ugly splotches. I want her to say it was because of me that Montague had done that so I can go and beat him to a pulp, but Ainsley continues to sit by herself, proud and stone-faced and indifferent as she pushes her food around on her plate. 

     I've decided to hate her more than I did Montague — before I do something stupid. So every time I see her, I remind myself of the garden. I think of how I had arrived home that following weekend to find the entire plot of land levelled. Not a single flower remained. And then I would curse her in my head, call her the most hateful names I could think of, reduce her smiling face to that of the ugliest Grindylow I could conjure.

     I hate her so much I think I might just knuckle her across the nose the next time I see her. Knowing she comes into my house, sits with the people who have taken away the one thing of value I had left, sickens me to my stomach.

     But the only thing that makes me sicker is hearing Montague coming back to the dorms in the dead of night, how he groans when he climbs into bed like he'd just run a marathon and is finally getting some rest. I think of him holding her body, the body that wears his scars.

     I play back the images I had mentally collected of her. Her elongated legs and ruddy face, strands of hair sticking to her dampened shoulders under the tree. At home, sitting across me as she places a cube of pineapple into her small mouth, her voice imitating the cracking cellophane that wraps the yellow sweets. Her laughter, like she doesn't have a care in the world.

     But I know that under all those layers of puffed-up cheeriness and Cheshire-grins, Gabriella Ainsley cares about a lot of things. I want to know what those things are, and I wonder if perhaps — just perhaps — I might still be one of them.

     And then I think I'm doing too much thinking for my own good.

     I wish I hadn't pulled that ribbon.