As You Are // D.M.

I'M THINKING

"Stop being so bloody stubborn, you know I am right."

She was right and I hated to admit it. Yet, here we were, two days later and I was on the verge of a mental breakdown. I splashed the cold water onto my pale face, watching as the clear droplets fell onto the marble counter.

Narcissa Malfoy, the very woman who so recklessly involved the love of my life in an Unbreakable Vow, was my mother. She was my mother and she raised me. She was the one who read me bedtime stories of the Deathly Hallows, rubbed my back when I was sick with dragon pox at nine years old, she protected me as much as she could from my fathers wrath and took the brunt of it. She sent me treats at school and came to all of my quidditch games. She coddled me, held my hand when things got scary and I didn't want to face the monsters under my bed. She bought my wand for me, named me after the Noble House of Black tradition, which I carried over with naming my son. 

She was my mother and my blood.

I took in a deep breath and pressed my face against the fluffy white hand towel sitting in the ornate silver ring on the wall. The very same ones that my mother had picked out with Astoria on the same fucking fixtures, that she most likely purchased with her and my father first got married. Everything in this entire house wreaked of Narcissa Malfoy down to the fucking wooden floors.

But as much as I wanted to burn this place to the ground, this house had been in the Malfoy family for centuries. My father grew up here and his father before. I was raised here and I expected my son to have the same luxuries that I did.

I shuffled out into the dimly lit hall, the night clearly upon us now. I quietly walked to the other end of the hall and peeled open Scorpius' bedroom door. The tiny boy was curled up into a ball, his thumb in his mouth while he squeezed a tiny green dragon with all of his might. His pale blonde hair, identical to my own, laid messily on his sharp and serene features. 

I had the overarching fear these past few days, since I forced my mother out of our home, that she was going to hire bandits and have him snatched away in the night. It started to drive me mad to the point where I wasn't sleeping, only standing guard in that front sitting room where I was planning to head after I kissed his cool forehead good night. I gently closed the door and stalked down the hall, my instincts on high alert as I looked deep into the shadows for anyone that would harm us. 

Breathe. 

I wasn't that scared little boy anymore, the one who used to scream over a mountain troll in the dungeons. I was a man, I was a father and once a husband. I was to be someone's husband again very soon, if I could wrap my head around it all. I had a soulmate and someone who loved me no matter what dark ink stained my very flesh.

I took in a deep breath, as I quickly rushed down the stone steps and pivoted into the sitting room. There was a large crystal decanter, filled to the brim with amber liquid, that had my name written all over it. I quickly poured myself a glass, waving my wand at the giant hearth and threw myself down onto the tufted leather sofa. I let out a deep breath, as I stared into those vibrant orange flames. Their wicked fire tongues lapped at the grey stone, leaving behind a back mark in their wake.

"Oy!" Oliver's voice rang in the quiet room. "Glad to see you're alive, however, you look like shit mate."

I didn't even bother to look at him, I just kept my eyes trained on the roaring flames.

"Darling, we talked about this," Naomi hissed through her teeth, as she strolled over to the bar in the far corner.

Oliver smirked as he sat down on the sofa across from me. He leaned far back into the leather, casually crossing his left leg over his right knee. After everything that had happened, apparently Pansy and Blaise sounded the many alarms that they put into place and the pair, who lived in America now, came running back home. Of course, I offered them comfort in my home since it would be ridiculous to have them stay at the Leaky Cauldron or some other shit hole in Diagon Alley, but also there was the underlying fact that I didn't want to be alone in here— not after everything that had happened.