Draco's Mudblood - Draco Malfoy Fan Fiction - *Year One*

A Vacation

Isobel Anderson would never remember this moment in its entirety even though it changed her life forever.

Her room in her mom's apartment in New York was small, as most New York apartments go, but it was hers and she loved it dearly. Her bed was covered in stuffed animals with abstract names like Pebble and Twig. She kept her clothes in a laundry basket like she was told, but few shirts and school skirts lay about, draped over her desk chair or spilling from her drawers like a tongue from the mouth of a dog. She had quite a few books, too, for someone her age, having learned to read before anyone had expected her to, what with how quiet she was. Most of these books were tucked into the shelves of her bedside table, but her collection was only growing, so many were stacked on her floors like small mountains. And, her favourite part of her room, she had dozens of plastered glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling.

Isobel lay on her bed and stared at them lovingly as they shone down on her, swirling about. She pointed to one of the clusters and laughed as it formed the shape of a train chugging across her ceiling, puffs of starry smoke trailing behind it.

She didn't know it but this was almost the exact reason she'd been sent to her room.

Down the hall from Isobel's room, Chloe Anderson and Jesalynn Mason were fighting.

Jesalynn watched Chloe pacing across the kitchen floor, one hand in her dirty blonde hair, pulling at her scalp. "You can't be serious, Chloe. You can't actually be serious-"

Chloe spun on Jesalynn. Her eyes were cold. "I am."

"Please, Chloe, I know you're scared but it's not a big deal, it was just a bit of magic, it might have been a fluke for all we know-"

"Jes, she threw a kid across the cafeteria with her mind." Her voice was filled to the brim with fear. "The only reason we don't have a lawsuit on our hands is because there's no logical explanation as to why the kid flew across the room! He has a concussion and three fractures! Three!" She hissed.

"I know, I know, but it may have been an accident-"

"She could have killed him!"

"But she didn't-"

"Are you serious?"

"A little..."

Chloe shook her head. "Unbelievable."

Jesalynn reached out to her friend, and when she didn't pull away, she wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close. "I know you're scared, Chlo. I know. I was too, when I found out. But she has us, she has you, and we can teach her to understand it, to control it-"

"No," she pulled herself from Jesalynn's grasp. It had felt so warm, so safe in her arms, but now all she felt was frozen to the bone. "No, I can't do this. I can't Jes. She-she needs to leave. I need you to take her away, to your apartment in London-"

Disbelief flooded Jesalynn's dark features. "What?"

"Take her. Please, Jes, just for a little while, just while I figure things out-"

Jesalynn's dark eyes pleaded with her friend, but Chloe was already turning her back to her, walking across the kitchen floor and closing the distance between her and Isobel's bedroom. She reached out and grabbed Chloe's arm. She begged. "Please, Chloe, rethink this! She's our daughter-"

"She is not your daughter." Chloe wrenched her hand from Jesalynn's grasp. Her voice was suddenly venomous, even as she watched her friend's heart shatter as she spoke. "She is my kid, I get to decide what happens to her, I know what's best for her, for us."

Jesalynn struggled to draw her shoulders back, she felt as though her body was collapsing in on itself, trying to stay strong. Her eyes betrayed her. "You're right. She's not my daughter. But she's six, Chloe. Six. She needs her mom."

"And I need her out of here! She's dangerous!"

She hadn't meant to say it. She hadn't meant to say that, hadn't meant to put so much passion into her voice, hadn't meant to let what she was feeling, panic and fear, turn into aggression that leaked from her words like a poison. She didn't mean it.

She would regret it later.

Not that it mattered now.

There were tears pooling in her eyes and streaming down her cheeks, clinging to her chin. "I can't do this again, Jes. Not again."

Later that night, Jesalynn would help Isobel pack her bags. "Auntie Jes, where are we going?"

She couldn't meet her eyes. "We're going on a vacation."

"A vacation?" Isobel's eyes lit up.

Jesalynn nodded. "A vacation."

"I've never been on a vacation before. Where are we going?"

"London, my apartment. We'll go visit some museums or something. Tourist things," she wiggled her eyebrows and tried to hide how badly her heart ached.

Isobel giggled, eyes bright as headlights. "Really? Can we go to your old school?"

She couldn't help but laugh a little. "Maybe."

"Is mommy going with us?"

Jesalynn couldn't escape the hope in Isobel's eyes. She wanted so badly to tell her that yes, Chloe will go with us and this whole thing will blow over, and then we'll come back here and she'll see that even if you are a witch, that's okay, we'll be okay...

But that was a promise she could never keep.

Instead, they finished packing up Isobel's room and hurried to catch a very last minute flight, leaving most of Isobel's things behind including Pebble and Twig and the glow-in-the-dark stars.