The Diggory Sister || Draco Malfoy

27 - The Funeral

"It's the Diggory boy's funeral today."

Draco glanced up from his bowl of Lucky Charms. He watched apprehensively as his mother took a sip of coffee.

"Apparently all the Hogwarts professors are attending, along with the majority of the school, I should imagine." She continued, looking pointedly towards her son.

"If our son thinks he is going to a blood traitor's funeral, then he can think again." Lucius snarled, snapping closed the newspaper in front of him.

Draco let his spoon fall into his bowl, pushing it to the side. He suddenly wasn't hungry anymore.

"He was his schoolmate!" Narcissa implored, "Doesn't he deserve to say goodbye as much as anyone else?"

"We are Malfoy's!" Lucius hissed vehemently, slamming his fist noisily down on the kitchen table. "We do not grieve at the gravesides of blood traitors!"

"But-"

"Forget it, Mother," Draco said, sighing resignedly as he scraped his chair back. "I know the score."

He went straight to his room, sitting down upon his desk, grabbing a fresh piece of parchment as he did so.

He couldn't stop thinking about Aurora and what she must be going through today. It hurt him so much that he couldn't be there to support her; to hold her up when she could no longer stand, to soak her tears when they wouldn't stop flowing.

He hurriedly scratched quill to parchment, writing words of comfort that he wished he could offer her in person.

When he had finished, he sealed it and sent it off with one of the owls in the Malfoy Owlery.

He hoped she would manage to read it before she left. Left to face possibly one of the worst days of her life.

...

An owl tapped on my bedroom window, waking me from my restless slumber.

I leapt out of bed, recognising it instantly as a Malfoy owl.

Draco had written to me almost everyday over the first week of the holidays. Mostly sharing little anecdotes about the going ons at Malfoy Manor (Mother had to let go of the kitchen house-elf last night after it was caught trying to hump the chicken.). And he always, always told me how much he missed me.

I would always write back, instantly, commenting on his stories. It was difficult to talk about my own. It was beyond excruciating being home without Cedric.

The one I opened that morning, however, had no amusing anecdotes. It was short, it was simple, and yet it was everything.

You are strong and you are beautiful and you will get through this. I love you Aurora.

I closed my eyes, wishing so much that he was here to say this to me himself. I grabbed my half of our moonstone off of my bedside table and held it tightly in my hand, welcoming the cool smooth surface of it against my skin. Our stone.

I needed all the strength I could get today.

Almost everyone from Hogwarts turned up to the service. Everyone except the Slytherins - and Harry Potter.

I stayed by my dad's side through the whole thing, clutching his hand as his body shook in deep, all consuming grief.

I felt I had to be the strong one for the both of us, but I wanted to break down myself, to sob in Draco's arms as I watched them lower my brother into the ground.

It was what broke my father in the end. As the coffin reached the bottom of the grave, he collapsed in a heap on the ground.

"Dad!" I cried, sobbing as I tried to get him to respond to me. "Please, Dad!"

But it was as though he had gone somewhere inside his head and stayed there, hidden away from the rest of the world. His eyes were open but it was as if he was seeing nothing.

Tears cascaded down my face as someone placed their hands on my upper arms, gently trying to coax me away.

"There, there, my dear," said a soft, kind, gentle voice belonging to the Weasley mother. "Your father will be okay, he just needs a bit of help."

He was taken back to St Mungo's, and put under heavy medication. They told me he'd suffered a severe mental breakdown, and was as good as in a coma.

I'd lost both my mother and my brother. And now, it seemed, I'd also lost my father too.

I felt so alone.

...

Draco was getting fearful with worry.

It had been two weeks since he'd heard anything from Aurora. The last letter had been on the day of Cedric's funeral, when she had simply sent a reply to his note saying that she loved him too.

He had written to her almost everyday since, but the owls kept returning with the letters - undelivered and unopened.

It didn't make sense. If she wasn't at her home, then where was she? And why hadn't she written to explain?

In the end, he couldn't take it anymore, and approached his mother. "I need to go to Devon."

"Why on earth so?" She inquired, raising her eyebrows curiously.

"I- I... there's someone I need to see, I'm worried about her."

"Ahh, a girl," she smiled. "I see."

"No, you don't. It's Aurora - Cedric Diggory's sister. I haven't heard from her since the funeral. And my letters keep coming back unopened."

"Grief does all sorts of things to people, Draco,"  his mother sighed, sympathetically. "Burying her brother would have been a traumatic experience. She probably needs time."

"She wouldn't have returned my letters, though," he said, exasperatedly driving a hand through his hair. But even as he said this, he remembered how in those last days of Hogwarts, after Cedric's death, she had shut herself away - even from him.

To his surprise, his mother reached out and placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. "I'll see what I can find out."

And she gave him such a warm, compassionate look, that Draco had to resist the sudden urge to weep in his mother's arms.

...

She had come back to him with news just a few hours later.

"The father is now a permanent resident on St Mungo's closed ward, and it seems no one knows what has happened to the girl. It's as though she's disappeared into thin air. The Diggory cottage has been empty since the day of the funeral."

"What?!" Well, that at least explained why his letters hadn't been delivered.

"I'm sure she's being looked after, Draco. You mustn't fret. She's returning as a student at Hogwarts in September, is she not?"

"Yes, but..." he tailed off not sure about anything anymore. He couldn't believe she wouldn't want to let him know she was at least okay, wherever she was.

He felt so fucking uneasy. He should have tried harder to be there for her at the funeral. Perhaps she was angry with him?

He had let her down. Again.

And wherever she was, he prayed she was all right.