You're Safe With Me ( Draco Malfoy )

Chapter Twenty-Five

As Draco spoke about his family to the order, who were sat around the table listening to his every word, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. It was hard for him not to cry, his face getting hot more than once, but he managed to hold it back with sheer willpower. Alice's hand holding his beneath the table also helped, giving him something to focus on other than dragging up his personal life to a group of strangers.

"-I never had a choice. That's about it, I think." He finished uncomfortably, trying to subtly take deeper breaths in order to keep calm without showing anyone that he was stressed, his pride was already suffering enough. Of course Alice could already tell that he was worked up, his knee was bouncing and he was fidgeting, but there wasn't much that she could do about it just yet. Instead, she just gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, hoping that it made a difference.

Everyone at the table was silent for a minute, processing what Draco had said. It wasn't something that any of them had expected to hear, and they were all rather surprised. Some looked to him sympathetically, while others simply looked to their laps.

"That's..." Daniel started, but trailed off, unsure of how to finish his sentence.

"Horrible." Lupin finished, a solemn look on his face. Internally, Remus felt terrible for not noticing that something was wrong with one of his students when he had taught them, but he knew that the problem wasn't about him.

"Well I hate to play devil's advocate, but how do we know he's telling the truth?" Mad-eye Moody asked with what sounded close to a growl in his voice, his fake eye looking to everyone on the table while his real one stayed on Draco.

"Mad-eye!" Molly exclaimed disapprovingly, scolding the man for even suggesting such a thing. Draco shot a worried look to Alice who, not knowing what else to do, squeezed his hand under the table again.

"No, no, he's got a point." Mundungus Fletcher spoke, making Alice realise why she didn't like him. Not being able to help herself she shot a killer glare at him over the table, which genuinely seemed to frighten him slightly.

The table then exploded in to an argument on if Draco was, in fact, trustworthy or not. Molly was the loudest in his favour by far, but Mundungus was convinced that the whole thing was fabricated. Everyone, though, had something to say about it.

"He's telling the truth." Tonks stated, rather loudly and with a voice full of conviction. Everyone stopped shouting to look at her, Mundungus scoffing, clearly not believing her.

"Oh, really? Pray tell, how would you know?" He asked in a rather patronising way. Tonks replied, ignoring Mundungus and talking directly to Draco.

"It was Bellatrix, wasn't it? She was the one who got your Mother involved with Voldemort in the first place, right?" She asked, some of the people around the table cringed at his name, but Alice was simply confused. Draco hadn't mentioned anything about Bellatrix, his aunt, being the reason that his family were controlled before. If she didn't know, then how did Tonks?

"How did you know?" Draco asked, absolutely shocked. That was something that he had never said out loud, and it was more than surprising that this woman who he had never met seemed so sure of it.

"Because she tried to get my mother involved too, before we were disowned from the family, of course." Tonks replied, Draco's eyes widened.

"You're..." He trailed off, looking at Tonks with his eyebrows drawn together.

"I'm your cousin." She said softly, softly, but factually.

The entire table was shocked in to silence, Alice being the first to break it after her best attempt to process the information herself. It didn't work.