"We understand," Draco's mother said.
He looked up from his dinner plate, outraged. Did he misread her Howler? Had he misread the tone of the past two days? Did she take him for a goddamn fool?
"Understand?" he asked in barely contained fury. "Understand what?"
They were sitting at Christmas Eve dinner, two days into the holiday. They usually invited all sorts of guests to the holiday festivities but this year, they sat at the black marble table as a solemn trio. Since Draco had been home, his father had barely said a word and his mother had talked far too much. It was funny, since she told him not to mention a word of his 'excursion' during the holidays. She seemed to have changed stances on what they should and should not talk about at the dinner table.
She kept coming up into Draco's bedroom, as he had locked himself up there for two days straight. She kept trying to sit him down and talk about Evangeline away from his father's watchful eyes. Every time, Draco dismissed her. He didn't want to talk about it with her. It was a pointless battle. It would be a useless conversation. But now, his mother changed patterns, bringing up the topic in the middle of their dinner.
"We understand," his mother said in her usual posh tone, throwing a heated glance at his father. Lucius Malfoy was currently staring down at his plate, fuming. "That all of this. . . does not mean anything."
"Oh?" Draco asked with a laugh. "You've got it all worked out, have you mother? I'm so glad for you."
"We know that—"
"Narcissa, have you forgotten what I told you?" his father barked.
"We know that your time with the Mudblood—"
"Don't use that fucking word," Draco hissed at her. His father met his eyes for the first time in two days.
"Why, you dare—!"
"Your time with that girl was only driven by—"
Draco stood up from his seat, stopping them completely in their attempts to purge.
He got as far as the staircase before his parents reached him. They were a hurried, bumbling display of fools, interrupting each other over and over as they attempted to fulfill each of their own vendettas.
"You may not return to this house if—!"
"You do not truly appreciate the gravity of—!"
"Narcissa would you please—!"
"I am only trying to—!"
"Do not act as if this can solved by—!"
"Draco, if you are to recover from this shame, we must—!"
"Shame?!" Draco yelled, whirling around and interrupting them both. "What shame?!"
Something was different this time. She was not going to let Draco dismiss her, he could see it in her eyes. His mother was going to force his hand.
"Have we not raised you in proper beliefs? Have we not told you, all your life, of the dangers of mixing blood?!" his mother exploded, gripping onto the staircase railing. "Our kind would not survive, we would be thrown into poverty, only weakened witches and wizards would remain!"
"You will be no son of mine," his father then said, slowly and with care. Draco looked between them, back and forth to each of their eyes in turn.
"Excellent," he retorted, looking his father dead in the eyes and smiling sadistically at him. "About damn time you made it official—I've been waiting long enough."
"Draco!" his mother chastised. He took a step downwards, the clicking sound of his shoes echoing off of the cold walls of his childhood home.
"I'm done," he said severely. "I've had enough, understand?" he stepped down and down the steps until he was at their level again. His father's fist clenched at his side, but he didn't break.
"You would give up your legacy over—?!"
"OVER HER, YES! ANY FUCKING DAY!" Draco exploded. "ANY DAY! I'D LEAVE RIGHT NOW!"
"SHE IS A PHASE!" his mother screamed, her pale face turning red. "A TERRIBLE, MEANINGLESS PHASE! ONCE YOU GROW OUT OF IT, THEN WHAT?!"
"YOU WILL NOT COME CRAWLING BACK INTO MY HOME!!" his fathered screamed at his mother's side.
"I'D RATHER FUCKING DIE, BUT THANKS!" Draco screamed at him, because why in the fuck would he ever go back there? He looked around the sitting room. It was all dark and cold and posh and expensive—if he never stepped foot in that house again, it would be too bloody soon.
"HOW WILL THE MALFOY NAME CONTINUE ON?!" his mother screamed.
"MY FATHER NEVER WOULD HAVE—" his father started, about to tell Draco how his mother and father never would have allowed it, that they were rolling over in their graves, right now.
"I am not a punching bag for your own shitty childhood," Draco snapped at him. His father clenched his fist again.
His mother took a deep breath, raising her hands. "This is a mistake, one that will cost you greatly if you ever—"
His father interrupted, rambling on about the dangers of it all, how the rest of their cutthroat psychopath family members would react once they knew. Draco panted, his vision going entirely red as he listened to them grovel. They went back and forth, going on and on. Draco stared at them in silence, clenching his fists at his sides. His mother was screaming, then his father, then his mother again, each repeating the same phrases and words repeatedly, like they were stuck in a never-ending pattern.
His father was the one who cracked him, shattering him with a final blow. By then, Draco went deaf, as if his head were held under water. He felt it, bubbling up in his throat like bile—the trump card that he did not want to play. And yet, he wavered, gripping onto the staircase railing with a trembling hand.
"She is nothing more than filthy . . . little . . . MUDBL—!"
"I LOVE HER!" Draco shrieked at the top of his lungs. His heart crashed violently up into his throat, the moment the words left his mouth.
Draco's face fell. His heart stopped as the epiphany crashed down onto his shoulders like the fiery waves of an apocalypse.
"YOU ARE A CHILD!" his mother screamed, incensed to shrieking by his confession. Draco blinked frantically. One of the house elves, Topsy, squealed by the window as she dusted the pane.
Draco choked on the air, his eyes burning. He swallowed hard, willing the hot tears not to fall. They welled up in his eyes as the all-consuming emotion rattled his rib cage. He would never be the same, now that he had said it out loud. He was fucking ruined.
His parents both went silent, and goddammit, he was ready to leave, right now. He made a frantic decision to pack his trunk, the second he succeeded in escaping to his bedroom.
"You do not love this girl," his mother said quietly as his father took a deep breath. "You are a foolish boy with foolish feelings, and they will fade."
"Oh, I am a fool," Draco laughed as rogue water stung beneath his eyes. "Because I have loved her for so . . . goddamn long," he said, raising his eyebrows at his mother and spitting the words out in her face.
"How dare you speak to your mother in that way—!"
"I'm in love with her," he interrupted in a low voice, as if he were saying it only to himself. His parents didn't deserve to hear the fragile, beautiful submission. It was meant for another pair of ears—a girl far more deserving. Draco shook his head. "You won't change my mind."
His father looked ready to blow. Lucius took a step forward, practically shoving his mother to the side. He squared up to Draco, nose to nose.
"I will not have a Mudblood heir," Lucius growled. "Mark my words."
Draco just laughed, rolling his tongue underneath his bottom lip and looking up at the grand chandelier. He snapped his eyes back down to his father's and sealed his fate with one singular sentence.
"Oh, don't worry Father . . . if I have my way . . . there'll be plenty of Malfoy half-bloods."
There's was a moment of enraged silence, another clench of a fist, some appalled stuttering from his mother. Then—
Then, Draco's face smacked to the side, as Lucius Malfoy had brutally sucker-punched his son—his fist cracking across Draco's face with the rage of a thousand generations.
"Lucius!"
Draco was mildly amused, as he had been hit a hell of a lot harder than that. Evan broke his goddamn nose, and his father only managed to make it bleed.
But he was knocked off his feet, now sitting on the bottom step. Draco simply wiped his nose on his sleeve and stood back up again.
"All the more reason. Thank you," he said calmly. Draco spit out blood at his father's feet and turned around, tearing up the stairs to pack his fucking trunk.
It didn't take long. He hadn't even unpacked in the first place, really. He stuffed his clothes back in his trunk, shoved his books into the corners, then closed it.
For a moment, he was just pacing, trying to collect himself. He caught a glance of the picture frame on his bedside table. It was a picture of all six of them—him, Theo, Blaise, Pansy, Onyx, and Evan.
He stared at it for a moment, looked at the bright smile on Evan's face, then released a breath.
"Topsy," he muttered. Within moments, the elf appeared inside of Draco's bedroom with a pop.
"Yes, Master Draco?" Topsy squealed.
"I need you to run into town for me. Quickly, I don't have much time," he said frantically, walking over to her.
"Master Lucius won't like—" Topsy started with wide eyes, looking at his bloodied nose.
"Yes, Master Lucius would fucking hate it!! But who in the flying fuck is your master?" Draco snapped.
"Master Draco, sir," Topsy replied.
"Right you are," he chuckled. "I need you to go into town. Quickly. There is a girl that I simply must send presents to before I leave."
He said this with a smile. He realized that Topsy thought he had gone completely insane. No matter.
"First of all, the biggest bottle of firewhiskey you can find," he ordered her, sitting on the edge of his bed. He only just remembered that his nose was bleeding profusely. He grabbed a black button down from his trunk and held it up to his face, staunching the flow of blood. Topsy looked a little more relaxed now that he was tending the wound. Draco continued speaking to her quite nasally through the shirt. "And then, a book over dragons. Romanian specifically. Any title, really."
"Yes Master," Topsy replied.
"And . . . buy Lola's out of woman's underwear," he demanded. Lola's was a lingerie shop in Wiltshire. He was sure they would be stocked quite well.
"Sizes?" Topsy asked, her globe eyes widening.
"Um . . ." Draco said, furrowing his brows. He looked up for a moment, thinking. Then he dropped the shirt from his nose and help up his hands, holding them apart in about the size of Evan's hips. Topsy looked back and forth between his hands, as if trying to measure the distance.
". . . yes, Master."
"Good. And make sure it's all wrapped, won't you?"
"Yes, Master," Topsy nodded.
Draco resumed his efforts to stop his nosebleed, but right before Topsy disapparated, he stopped her.
"Wait, Topsy!" Draco said frantically. Topsy paused, about to snap her fingers. "One more thing . . ."
- - -
"IF YOU THINK I'D ALLOW YOU TO GO TO THAT STUPID BOY'S HOUSE—!"
"Don't," Draco said menacingly, whipping his wand up to his father's face. Lucious raised his hands, leaning back from Draco's wand tip. "Don't . . . you . . . dare . . . say a word against Theodore fucking Nott."
This was why Lucius Malfoy hated Theo—because Draco always ran away to his house.
On the few occasions this had happened before, when Draco had gotten mediocre grades, or got caught partying at school, or when he slingshotted rocks at his father's precious peacocks, Theo always greeted Draco with a guest bed to sleep in, no questions asked. As Theo had mentioned when he brought it up at Quidditch practice, Draco planned to repay him with a bottle of firewhiskey, which he now had stowed away in his trunk—along with the wrapped parcel for Evan that he planned to send out on his way to Nott Manor.
But for right now, he still had his wand between his father's eyes.
Draco's father looked at his nose, which was bloodied and bruising. Draco had a vague thought that Lucius might be fearful of Theo, or maybe Nott Sr., seeing the injury.
"Let's . . . just . . . calm . . . down," his father said, raising his hands.
"Yes, let's," Draco spat out, lowering his wand. "Happy Christmas, mother," Draco said with a crazed smile, as his mother was literally crying on the couch. He returned his wand to his pocket, picked up his trunk, and walked the rest of the way down the stairs.
But before he could bolt out of the front door, his father lunged forward, grabbed hard onto his shoulder, and sent him hurtling through space and reality.
The familiar sensation of Apparition overcame Draco then. The squeezing, the inability to breathe or see, the strange, whirling colors. And then, he was suddenly standing in the middle of Hogsmeade, screaming profanity at his father through the icy wind.
"You will stay at the castle until term resumes, to think about what you have done. Then, we will re-evaluate," his father said calmly.
"SUCK MY DICK, OLD MAN!!" Draco raged out, throwing his trunk at him. He lifted it up and hurled it at his father's face, but the motherfucker snapped out of sight, just in time. Draco's trunk fell open on Hogsmede's cobblestone street.
Mere moments later, Draco was laughing. He was laughing hard and with reckless abandon.
There was a girl at the castle that was in desperate need of a Christmas companion. And Lucius Malfoy had just delivered Draco directly onto her doorstep.