you're my person-a draco malfoy story

4

Bree

"I appreciate you letting me make up what I missed in class today, Professor," I said as I added ingredients to the potion brewing in front of me. Snape was silent. "I don't normally do this for student, Ms. Barnes, but one of my best, a Mr. Malfoy, recommended that I let you have a...pass," his voice cut off crisply. "I wasn't aware you were...acquainted with Draco."

"I'm not," I said sharply, sharper than I'd intended. Why did everyone at this school seem to care about one thing, and that one thing be whether or not I was involved with Draco Malfoy? "I wouldn't even call us friends, Professor. He's made it clear he wants nothing to do with anyone who's lead a Muggle life."

Snape ignored me as he leaned over the cauldron. I sat back on my haunches, as I'd been brewing from the floor. "Go on, Miss Barnes," he motioned with his hands. "It's not making the potion, it's what it tells you."

"I don't understand, Professor-"

"At Hogwarts, Breeanne, we aren't just learning how to conjure magic. We are learning, at least trying to, how to live it. Now, lean in, and tell me what you smell. Amortentia is supposed to reveal the one who the heart most truly desires. That's the only way to know if you've done it correctly."

I brushed my hair behind my ear, and fully prepared for nothing. I had full faith that I'd done it right, but none in the fact that my heart desired anything. I didn't even know who was in my life beyond the day's end, I'd spent my life that way, so how the hell was I supposed to know who I wanted in it? "Professor," I said, feeling a catch in my throat creep up. "I'm not sure I'm capable of forming that kind of connection with anyone quite yet."

"Ah, Miss Barnes," he stalked back up to his chair and sat down, his eyes studying me carefully. "My job is to test you, and for you to ultimately leave here with capabilities you didn't know you had. This seems like a perfect place to begin, does it not?"

I said nothing. I wasn't ready to face the fact that I was, as my second foster mother Hope had said before she'd kicked me out, both unable to love, and incapable of it myself. "Your mother said the same thing," Snape said, drawing me out of my introspection. 

That got my attention.

"You-you knew her?" I asked, desperate for him to give me anything about her.

"I knew Andromeda well," he said, and there was almost sadness beyond his glazed stare. "You're a spitting image."

Andromeda...? I'd only ever heard her be called Andie.

"I was always told I looked like my father."

"Ah, Marco," Snape sighed, resting his hands on the armrest. "Potions never was his strong suit. Andie, on the other hand..."

I'd had enough. I leaned forward forcibly, and almost choked on the overwhelming fragrance of green apples, a distinct cologne, and peppermint that arose. I started coughing, and Snape made no movement except a simple twitch of an eyebrow. "Should I call Madame Pomfrey, Ms. Barnes?"

"No," I coughed. "I just...has someone been eating...apples?"

___

Draco

"I'm telling you, my amortentia had a scent," I paced back and forth. My father had appeared almost as soon as I had owled him. 

"Isn't that what you wanted?" he scoffed. I couldn't tell if he were degrading me, or truly interested in the fact that I'd gotten what I'd been so desperate for. "For all the time you spent up there, reading those forsaken books.." his eyes moved to Bree's copy of The Great Gatsby that was still on my desk. "I see old habits die hard, just as I thought we were over this."

"What changed, Father?" I closed my eyes to keep from strangling someone. Whether it would be him or myself, I couldn't yet tell. "What's wrong with me?"

"It was probably a prank by Goyle. You remember what stunt you two pulled last year with Weasley and Granger's amortentia. That was an earful from Severus I did not expect to hear at the conclusion of your fifth year," his voice dipped low, dripping with ice. 

"That's the thing, Dad," I sighed, sitting down and focusing on the floor. "He wasn't even there. No one else knows how to change scents besides Granger, and she was too busy making love with Weasley in the back."

"Don't be jealous, Draco," my father quipped, picking up Gatsby and thumbing through the pages. "You have more to look forward to than love." He spat out the word as if it were a curse even he wasn't low enough to cast.

"The end will prove I made the right choice," I repeated back dully. "I know, Father."

"Draco," my father said calmly, too calmly. "What are you doing with Marco Maverick's personal reading library?"

I looked at him, confused. If the name was supposed to ring a bell, it didn't. "I have no idea, Father. Some girl gave it to me. I was just returning it, I didn't even read it.."

"It's Marco's, it can't be.." he trailed off, looking up at me, "And it's Muggle." He snapped it shut, the hard cover of the novel reverberating off the walls in my room. "Where did you get this, boy?" His voice went up to a roar as he struck me across the face with it. "Who gave this to you? In the name of the Dark Lord, I demand to know, now!" I stumbled backwards until he cornered me against the wall, holding my eye in pain. "I'm going to ask you one more time," he gritted his teeth in my face. "Where. Did. You. Get. This."

"I told you," I cowered to cover from a blow. "The girl gave it to me. The new one. Said it was her father's...I really don't know anything else, Father, I'm sorry, now please...give it back so I can return it."

"Marco had a daughter," my father said thoughtfully, stroking his chin with the hand he'd just used to land a blow to my temples. I couldn't tell if he was asking me or just linking his thoughts together, so I stayed silent and nodded vaguely. He looked at me as if for confirmation, so I nodded more vigorously. "Her name is Bree. She's new this year. Came from Muggle school, but swore her parents were Slytherins."

"And she is as well?"

I nodded, but he wasn't looking at me. "Yes," I said, with more fervor this time. "She's fit in well thus far, with Parkinson and Thornhill and Canton, that crowd."

"I'm sure the Dark Lord will be glad to know the family line continues," he said absentmindedly. "I wonder if I'll be the first to make him aware."

"Father, wait," I raised my hand to stop him before he could leave. "What if he doesn't know for a reason? Was Marco...like us?" I lowered my voice, although I wasn't sure why. "People are talking, you know," I said. "I think someone's going to tell Dumbledore anyday now of the suspicion."

"That's why Severus is here, Draco," he said in annoyance. "You'll be fine."

"Potter's only growing stronger, Dad." I felt my voice deflate. "I'm running out of time."

"Then I don't expect this," he flicked the pages to punctuate his words, "Or her, to be a problem." And he turned to go. 

"You didn't answer my question, Father." Why was it that I only built up strength when his back was turned?

"What is it, Draco? I'm a very busy man, you may have forgotten that when you crossed these walls."

"I said," my voice shaking as I tried to ball my hands into fists to subside the anger boiling inside me. How could he pin me with these tasks that were too much for him or any other Death Eater, but still manage to condescend me to the level of a child? I would never understand the hurricane of contradictions that was my father, or the destructive zephyrs of our relationship, and I was slowly coming to the conclusion I never would, and maybe didn't want to. "Were they....was he, one of us?"

"One of the best," my father said curtly. "He was an old friend of mine. But a traitor, Draco. He and the woman, Andromeda, both of them. On their way to deliver James and Lily Potter, and then they were gone, and nothing but the Order's symbol in their place. We lost not only James and Lily, but two of the Dark Lord's most trusted own. That is why I'm sure he'll be happy to find someone to fulfill their debt. Or at the very least, bring them out of hiding."

And then he was gone without a trace.