the marriage stone (Discontinued)

Chapter 48 Wolf at the Door

Charlie turned and studied the young man. Draco's eyes were wide, watching his every movement, and Charlie knew that he was listening intently to his words. "Just like the Dragon was not meant to be literal, neither was the wolf. The thing waiting to devour you, Draco, is not a werewolf or a dark lord. It's the wolf inside you. The dark thing that made you think that your own father was trying to kill you."

Draco flinched at his words and something horrible and painful filled those blue eyes, and for a moment all Charlie could see was a boy who desperately wanted affection from a father who was not capable of giving it. He could see clearly that the young man understood - that the wolf that threatened him was the very world he lived in, the coldness, the cruelty, the constant fear that the very people he should be able to trust were the ones most likely to stab him in the back. That wolf inside of Draco would break his soul apart and reshape it into something horrible to earn the love and approval of a man he could never truly please.

Charlie stepped toward him, wanting to offer some comfort even while speaking words he knew would hurt. "Both our fathers were here today," he told him. "You stood before your father and trembled in fear, knowing he would strike you if given the chance. But I knew my father would support me without question. Just as I know that my mother and my brothers and my sister will welcome you into the family."

Draco shook his head violently at that. "No," he denied. "I don't believe you!"

Charlie sat down beside him on the bed. "Oh, I have no doubt that Ron will have a good laugh over this," he flicked the gold around Draco's neck with one finger. "And no doubt you'll be subjected to a good deal of teasing over it, though after your comments to Harry when he was married I suspect you deserve some teasing in turn." Draco's eyes flashed at that, and Charlie couldn't help but smile. "But I also know that if anyone attempts to take advantage of you or tries to hurt you because of this, Ron will be the first in line to defend you. Neither he nor Ginny would stand by and let anyone hurt their brother-in-law."

He could see the wild emotion churning in Draco, the confusion, the disbelief. He could also see sixteen years worth of prejudice warring inside him - the idea that the family he was about to join was somehow beneath him despite the fact that they could give him the very affection he secretly craved. "You don't understand," Draco sighed. "You don't know what I'll face. Why couldn't you have just. . ."

"Courted you?" Charlie asked and saw by the blush that stained the young man's face that he had guessed correctly. "You and I both know it would never have been allowed."

The bitter frown that twisted the young man's features confirmed that he did indeed know the truth. There was no possibility that Lucius Malfoy would ever have accepted a suit from a Weasley.

Draco closed his fist around the piece of Dragon gold that hung around his neck. He looked up at Charlie, raw emotion in his eyes as he asked the one question Charlie knew he most desperately wanted answered. "Did you have to trick me?"

"I was desperate," Charlie confessed. "Without that gold I had no chance of claiming you. And without the Cedo contract your father would kill me the moment you were free of that gold. Is that what you want Draco? Do you want me to die?"

Draco grew still, his fist tightening around the gold. When he did not answer, Charlie understood in that instant that if he were to have any future at all with this young man, he would have to let Draco make the final choice.

"I'll remove the Dragon gold right now, but you have to ask for it," Charlie whispered echoing the words he had used the night before. "You have to ask for it."

Draco turned toward him, eyes wide and glittering, body poised as if waiting for something.

"I'll remove it," Charlie promised him. "You'll be your father's son again. Maybe your father will still have you marry Sirius. Or maybe he'll choose someone else for you, one of your Slytherin classmates perhaps. Or maybe he'll leave you be and let you live your life the way you want. Either way, you'll never see me again."