Under the Willow Tree | Draco Malfoy

chapter 63: your little mudblood pet

Lucius and Gideon were gone, not real, so Draco pulled himself onto his aching legs and hurried towards Lorelei. "How did you get here, princess?"

She smiled at him and reached a hand out towards him, but before he could reach her, her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she let out a deafening scream. Draco caught her as she collapsed.

Outside, the night returned in sweeping waves of darkness, but Draco didn't consider the reality of such an experience. He was too broken. Blood was pooling out of Lorelei's back where his father's knife was stabbed into her flesh, and Draco couldn't breathe.

Lucius paced the corridor and coldly laughed. "Oh, did you think I wouldn't find out about your little mudblood pet? You disgust me, Draco. You allowed yourself to be weakened by a mudblood. You let that vile thing turn you into a blood traitor!"

Gideon came out of the shadows with a slight smile dancing in his eyes. His brown hair was coated in blood and grime, and his normally blue eyes were soulless. His skin was still incredibly pale, but it was slowly yellowing before Draco's eyes.

"I'm going to kill both of you!" Draco screamed.

He stood up, shaking with rage, but in a flash, Lucius grabbed him by the collar of his jumper and threw him into the opposite wall. Draco groaned at the collision but started to pull himself to his feet again. Before he fully got to his feet again, Lucius was already there.

Draco snapped his eyes up at his father towering above him. Lucius' hands were formed into fists while the darkness from outside bled into the room and surrounded Lucius like a corrupted halo.

"Son, you really need to learn when to quit," Lucius sneered, and then the darkness consumed Draco's vision.

—

Draco opened his eyes in his bed and heard sobs scraping through his chest. He hated that he still couldn't recognize these nightmares. He never realized they were just dreams until they were over, after they had already hurt him.

These night terrors haunted him whenever he found a moment of sleep, so he often opted to stay up as late into the night as he could. The dreams were just far too painful. He would rather physically suffer than experience this mental anguish every night.

"Do you want to get some tea and talk, Draco?" Theo croaked from his nearby bed. He didn't fancy sacrificing his sleep normally, but every night, he still offered.

"No... Thank you though," Draco murmured and hastily wiped at his face. He sat up and put his face in his hands. His book lay discarded next to him on his bed. He would have to find a more interesting read next time, one that didn't let him fall asleep.

"A couple weeks ago, I slipped onto the train with the death eaters," Theo groggily whispered. "They were going to instill terror in Edinburgh, but I went to Lorelei's. She was at her Gran's, at the kitchen table. She was working on some Muggle homework it looked like. I left her a note to tell her we were all okay."

He sat up too, and a few pillows fell off the edge of his bed and onto the floor. His dark hair was disheveled, and his gaze was heavy with something Draco recognized in himself.

Fear.

"Did she look happy?" Draco didn't want her to be sad. He hoped she was finding things to look forward to, things to put her hope in.

"She certainly looked better than the two of us," Theo drily laughed.

"Do you think she's okay?"

"Okay is really subjective right now, mate. Her being alive is a relief in itself," Theo sighed.

Every time he heard about more attacks on Muggles in London, Theo scanned the list of the deceased and felt relieved when he didn't find their names.

"Will you visit her on our holiday break? I won't be able to see her, and I want her to be able to talk to one of us... I'm worried about how lonely she must be," Draco admitted.

His chest ached with the thought of her feeling how she did before she had any friends at Hogwarts. Draco didn't want her to ever suffer, and he hated how he couldn't stop the pain he knew she was probably feeling. If she could just see one of them, even for a few minutes, maybe it would give her some hope.

"Of course," Theo finally said. He gave Draco a reassuring smile.

Draco nodded repeatedly and took some deep breaths. Even if it wasn't much, it was something, and he just had to hope that would be enough.

//