Monday, October 18, 1999
There is no letter from Father. Not yesterday. Not yet today.
And I feel like I'm in a strange bubble until it arrives. A bubble that can be popped, yes, but still floating.
I run my hands through my hair for the fourteenth time, rustling the sides. I sprayed one more spritz of my cologne than normal, and immediately regretted it, so I had to take another shower.
After one last practiced smirk to the mirror, I head to the fireplaces, grab my briefcase from Mippy and pop through to the Ministry Atrium. I keep my eyes open for her, but I'm earlier than normal, and she likes to arrive right on time and stay late.
I get settled and meet with Robards.
"Can't say I know much about Runes, myself. Elected not to take that course," Robards mutters. I nod, looking down at the file we have. "But if you have any ideas," he continued. "I'd love to hear them. Let me know if you need a second pair of eyes."
I look up at him. I take a deep breath and dive in. "I suppose I could use another person. Any chance you think Granger could be spared from downstairs?"
Robards stares at me like I've given him a brilliant idea. "Granger? Yes, yes!" He smiles wide. "The two of you make a great team!"
I shrug. "She received an Outstanding in Runes. That's all I meant."
I'm whistling as I leave Robards office, offering to walk his note downstairs for him. I duplicate it, hand the original to Mathilda, and offer to tell Granger myself.
I'm twirling my wand around my fingers when I pass O'Connor, and not even his daft grin can put off my mood.
"Morning, Malfoy!"
"Good morning, O'Connor," I say. "Is Granger in?"
"Not yet. But should be any minute!"
"Excellent." I'm walking away from him as he starts to ask about my weekend.
Her cubicle is tidy. Several files she worked through on Friday are stacked in a neat pile. She has a picture of Potter, Weasley and her from third year, and another of two people who must be her parents, also taken about the same time.
I hear her voice coming from the direction of the lift. I sit in her chair. I stand. No, no. I'll sit.
I pull a file from the stack into my lap. I hear the click of her shoes, her ugly ministry ones, no doubt. At the last moment, just before she rounds the corner, I kick my legs up onto her desk. Perfect.
She stops in the entry when she sees me.
I smirk at her. "Hello, lover."
She blushes. Her breath leaves her in a laugh. And I watch as she pulls her eyes away from me.
"Good morning, Malfoy." She busies herself with her coat and bag. "What brings you here?"
Your legs – No, don't be ridiculous, Draco.
"Robards."
"Oh? More on the dragon eggs?"
She stands there, useless. I've completely thrown her off.
Excellent.
"Oh, no. That all got settled on Friday. Buyer caught and under questioning." I send her a grin. "I would have thought it would make the papers, but apparently there were more important things to report this weekend."
Merlin, I'm good. I can't believe how easy it is to bring up the article. I have to refrain from winking at her.
"Right. Apparently." She smiles back and I feel my blood humming. She turns to her cabinets, trying to get ready for the day, but she'll just have to work around me. I'll stay in this chair and if she wants to work, she'll have to sit in my lap. She continues, "I've written to Skeeter to ask her to correct some of her glaring inaccuracies. I would have thought the corrections would have made today's Prophet, but hopefully this week."
Of course she's already complained to Skeeter.
"Inaccuracies?" I pout. "You mean those mints weren't for me?"
She lifts a brow at me, and hits my foot with her paperwork. I suppose I could stand. I let her push past me to her chair, and don't bother to move fully out of her way. Her hips brush against my thighs.
She prompts me about Robards and I hand her the memo. I watch her face as she reads. She's still pink. The moment she fully comprehends the memo, I see her eyes widen in anxiety.
Before she can think about arguing with Mathilda, I say, "I've reserved the conference room upstairs for this afternoon, seeing as Level 4 has appallingly small rooms and cubicles." I look around her space. "I think my cube might be twice the size of yours, Granger. And I'm temporary." I lift a brow at her and she's glaring back. "See you at one, Granger."
I practically skip out of her office.
When she comes up after lunch, I already have the entire case laid out on the desk. I take the time to fully explain the points of interest, handing her pictures and notes, leaning over her shoulder to point at things. I get to see a blush creep up her neck.
Once she's settled, we're silent for the majority of the afternoon. When I get bored or need a stretch, I'll reach across her for something and watch her jump.
I wonder if she would have reacted like this last week, before the article. But then again, it's an unnecessary question because I would never have been this bold before – stretching my arms above my head, smirking at her, entering her personal space.
But before... I had seen her skin darken with a blush, her eyes take in my face and shoulders and occasionally my body. I look at her now. She's hunched over a picture, deciphering its origin, her tongue dragging over her bottom lip, concentrating. It's possible she's attracted to me. To my looks. Which is an excellent place to start.
My stomach tightens with the possibilities.
She feels my eyes and just before she looks up at me, I make the decision not to look away.
"Find anything interesting?" I say.
"Er, not yet." She blinks and looks back down at the pictures.
She blushes.
I grin.
On Tuesday morning, I swing by the café and get a tea. I was up most of the night, frustrated and overheated. As I reach the front of the line, I hear myself ordering a tea and a coffee. I fix it with a splash of milk and one sugar, fix my own tea, and then head upstairs.
Katie Bell and I share a lift on the way up. She chats with me about the charmed Muggle object they found last week, and I see her eyes drop to the second cup in my hands.
When I enter the conference room, she's already there. She's startled to see me so early, but I just place her cup in front of her and begin discussing the theories that ran through my head last night when I couldn't sleep for thoughts of her heaving chest.
Barely half an hour passes before she asks me how I knew she liked coffee over tea.
My pulse pounds, careful to give nothing away.
"Everyone knows you prefer coffee, Granger." I flip a page, refusing to give her a glance. "You've been spilling it all over the Hogwarts library books for years."
An indignant gasp, and before she can fight, I say, "I've checked books out after you and found the pages just soiled with spilt coffee. Practically dipped in it."
I smirk at the notes I'm going through. She huffs. And I remember the way she'd sip from a mug and read at the breakfast table.
I buy her another coffee on Wednesday morning, if anything, so I can see her blush at the gesture again. I beat her to the conference room, so I set it at her chair and start shuffling the notes. We're very close to finishing this.
I'm wearing an older set of robes today. They're not my favorite, but Mother says they bring out my eyes, whatever that means. I hate wearing colors other than grey or black, but I decided to give them a try.
I take a sip from my tea, and she flies into the room.
"That bitch!"
I sputter, trying to reconcile the idea of Granger using foul language outside of the bedroom.
"Sorry," she waves me off. "But she's wicked."
"Skeeter, I presume?"
"Yes. I wrote a follow-up letter last night asking about the status of my corrections, and threatening to write my next letter to her editor. And then this morning she prints this!"
She shoves the paper at me, and I try to focus on it instead of the spots of pink on her cheeks, or that fire in her eyes that's usually turned towards me.
At the bottom corner in tiny print, Skeeter has amended that we don't "canoodle" at Cornerstone Books.
Yeah, alright.
I look up. "Did you expect more, Granger?"
"I demanded more!" she screeches. "I demanded a re-print!"
I toss the Prophet back to her and smirk. We've steered clear of the article, and the "date" itself. Seems like the perfect opportunity to get inside her head. I ask, "And which portions of Sunday's article so offended you, Granger?"
She stares at me like she's just seen thestrals for the first time. And blushes. I almost shiver.
"The inaccuracies."
I smile down at my finger, scratching at the old table. "I believe Skeeter reported that I visited you at work, invited you to lunch with my mother, and then walked you back," I say. I look up and her eyes are wide and there are spots of pink on her neck, right where I'd kill to place my lips. "Was that not what happened?"
She opens her mouth, and then squashes whatever words she wants to say.
"Fine, then," she says. "It was her artistic interpretation of things. 'Lust-filled eyes' and exaggerations –"
"Ah, but I believe the 'lust-filled eyes' were mine," I interrupt, sending her my smuggest grin. "Are you worried about the stretch of the Prophet? If it's made its way to... say, Ireland?" I'm desperate to know what she thinks of her "fiancé's" reaction to all this.
She stares at me. Then recovers. "No, not really," she says, shrugging. "I was honestly more concerned with your reputation than mine. But if you don't care, I'll leave it alone."
She sits at the table, looking to start work. There's a superiority there. Like she thinks she's won something.
"My reputation?"
"Yes." I watch as she scratches her jaw and concentrates on her work. "If I had a girlfriend for every day of the week, I'd be in a hurry to mend things after that article."
My mouth drops. A girlfriend for every day of the week.
A laugh tears its way from my chest, and I'm thinking of how she keeps tabs on me in the newspaper. Knows about my dates. Knows about Skeeter's assumptions with my inheritance.
And something dances in my chest at the idea that she could possibly – even an inch of her – be envious.
"How kind of you to worry about my social life, Granger," I coo. "But I believe my stock might have gone up." She looks at me. "Nothing boosts a reputation more than having the Golden Girl on your arm."
I hand her the coffee cup, and set about working on the Runes for the next six hours until she jumps up and squeals, bringing a copy of an old text in front of my face, pointing at the similarities in the case, eyes bright and chest heaving with anticipation.
~*~
Thursday, October 21, 1999
Getting to work next to her all week blinded me. I had some kind of single-minded focus on her and her reactions to me and how she makes me feel.
I'm just arriving home when I get a letter back from Cuthbert Mockridge, agreeing to sit down with me soon, paying me lip service about my father and how proud he would be of me. And I'm spiraling into sensations that my body hasn't untangled in years.
My tongue is dry.
I drop the letter from Mockridge, and watch it flutter to the floor, my eye twitching.
Proud of me.
My eyes cross, and I pick a spot on the ground to focus on, reaching for the entry table to steady myself.
I can feel my heartbeat in my toes. I try to concentrate on that.
I inhale, feeling it spin around my chest, and force myself to exhale.
Usually I'm leaning on a sink, a pimply-faced ghost hushing me, trying to ease her hand across my back and sending shivers down my spine.
I feel the shivers regardless.
I inhale.
There's water rushing through my ears, and I feel like it pours in one ear, sloshes, fills to the top, then a valve opens to rush out.
I hear Myrtle's flirty laugh.
I inhale, but it's not accomplishing anything.
What have I been doing? Playing house with Granger. Pretending to open a company with no skillset and no investors.
With money that isn't mine. Not yet.
I have no contract with Father.
I inhale.
I have no binding document that states he will give me this money.
I focus on my Slytherin ring against the stone floor. I guess I fell.
I inhale. I hear it dragged across the stones.
The only thing I have is an agreement with him that if I spend the 35,000 wisely, and stay away from her, I'll be opening a company on January 1st.
A company I don't know how to manage.
A dream.
I inhale and it chokes me.
I smell the dust on the floor and I wonder how Mippy could allow such dirt in my father's home.
Not mine.
Nothing is yet.
I push air through my nose, and I'm able to flip onto my back, staring at my father's ceiling.
I don't have a technique for this. Severus does.
Severus knows how. Standing over me, digging into my mind.
I feel the stone beneath my ribs, pressing up against me. Pressing down on me. Pressing in on me.
"Mr. Malfoy, you can breathe."
"I can't."
My hands on my chest, scratching at old scars, staring at the low ceiling of a small house, dusty with cobwebs and neglect.
"Mr. Malfoy, there is no time. He is expecting us back."
"I failed."
"The task is complete. The headmaster is dead."
"But I failed."
I'm looking up into Severus's eyes, sucking in air, throat closing. Potter's voice yelling "Coward!" at our backs is bouncing around my skull.
"You are more trained than this. This behavior is beneath you. You cannot stand before the Dark Lord unprepared."
Black spots peppering the edges of my vision.
"He's dead."
"Draco, find your walls."
His presence in my mind like a snake, pushing and seeing everything. Seeing the moment Dumbledore offered me sanctuary.
"Draco, he will want to know why you did not do it yourself. Work harder. I have trained you better than this."
He slithers through me and I only see his black eyes hovering. Tears leak out from the sides of my face, sliding down to my ears.
"Do you know how easily I can find her like this?"
And he's pulling forward a blue dress spinning, coffee cups, my hand on her hip in Umbridge's office, the fantasy of her breasts bouncing as she rides me – pumping myself in my four-poster, sugar quills, wide eyes, pink lips on my chest, small hands threading into my hair –
I can hear my throat rasping around thin air.
"Don't—"
"Stop me. Protect her."
And a jewelry box finally appears in my mind. It closes, and locks.
SPLASH!
Ice cold water against my face, burning my eyes, drowning my open mouth.
"Master Malfoy!"
I'm back in the manor, and Mippy is above me, terrified, holding a bucket.
"Master Malfoy! Mippy is not knowing what to do!"
I'm coughing, sitting up, heaving in air.
"You is laying there. You is not hearing me!"
The letter from Mockridge is just there, to my left, floating away on the stream.
I wipe my face.
"Mippy gets Mistress for you?"
"No." I stand on shaking legs. "No, I—Thank you, Mippy. Please don't tell my mother."
I snatch up the letter, and crawl up the stairs to my room, leaving the elf in the entry hall. I cast a drying charm and a warming charm.
I don't stop shivering.
I re-read Mockridge's letter for what it is. A positive sign. A good thing.
I write back to him, quill scratching strange penmanship on the parchment, setting up a time and place.
I pull another parchment and think of how to ask Father about our deal. How to apologize—
Not apologize. If I apologize then there is something to apologize for.
How to trivialize. How to suggest that our deal remains and to get something in writing.
The ink blots on the empty page.
Father won't appreciate letters. He values actions.
The quill meets the parchment to write:
Katya,
Dinner tomorrow night. It's important.
D.M.
~*~
Friday, October 22, 1999
"I had no idea you knew Hermione Granger so well! I've been hoping to make an acquaintance with her."
My wine glass stops its journey to my lips. I blink at her.
"I don't."
Katya stares at me.
"What do you mean, 'you don't,'" she says, laughing. "You spent the afternoon with her last week!"
I take a deep swallow of the wine.
"She's friends with my mother." I pat my lips with my napkin.
I cut into my meat. I chew aggressively. It's bland.
Katya is quiet. I look up, and she has her elbows on the table, fingers steepled under her chin. She's studying me.
Fuck.
"We were in the same year at Hogwarts. You knew that." My voice is lighter. Friendlier.
"True," she says. "But I didn't know you kept in touch."
Katya takes a deep drink from her glass, eyes on me.
"We work at the Ministry together now." I hear the familiar lines spin out of me. I look back at my plate and continue picking at the tasteless meal.
"So," Katya chirps, changing the subject. "What is so 'important' about this dinner? I saw your Daily Prophet photographer waiting outside."
I nod. "I was wondering if we could discuss public affection... in relation to our agreement."
Her brows raise. "I assume you're not talking about holding my hand." She laughs. "Is your social life not 'desirable' enough yet, Draco?" she teases. "You have at least two dates a week and you are going on family outings with Hermione Granger."
The muscle under my eye twitches, and I look away. When I come back to her she's watching me. I give her the reason I'm sure she'll understand, better than anyone.
"My father is not impressed."
We finish our meal. She laughs. I help her slip into her coat. She takes my hand as we exit. We turn the corner for the Apparition point, and Katya turns to look up at me.
I'm trying to remember the last time I kissed a girl. It was Pansy of course. But had it really been almost three years ago?
I slide my fingers into her hair, and it's too smooth. I press my lips to hers and they're too full.
I hear the click.
~*~
Saturday, October 23, 1999
"What do you think you're doing?"
The voice is firm, hiding anger.
I blink awake, wondering if I need locking charms on my door to stop friends and family from waking me with newspapers.
My mother stands tall next to my bed, glaring down at me. And, alas, holding the Prophet.
"Sleeping?"
She unfolds the paper and hands it to me. Katya and I have made the society section.
"Why would you do this? What possible game do you think you're playing?"
I tear my eyes away from the information Skeeter has gleaned. I look into my mother's cold blue eyes, surprised I need to spell this out for her.
"Father's game."
She scoffs. "I told you not to worry about your father –"
"No, you told me to make up my own rules. Here they are."
She stomps her foot and grabs the paper back from me. She's usually more controlled than this.
"Have you given any thought to the repercussions of this?" She shakes the paper.
I blink at her. "Meaning?"
"How do you think this will affect Hermione?"
I stare at her. "Probably not one bit." I shove the covers off and start getting dressed. I have Quidditch practice at dawn, and I can just make out the first rays of sunlight through my curtains.
"You will fix this."
I turn from my closet door. "Excuse me?" I lift a brow at her.
She's gone mental.
"You will go to Cornerstone today and fix this." She paces. "I have a book on reserve that I intended to pick up myself, but you will go instead."
"Fix what? Mother, I have no idea what you're on about." I grab a shirt from its hanger. "What on earth gave you the impression that Granger and I are courting?"
She throws the paper on the ground.
"You're an idiot."
She storms out.
~*~
Saturday, October 23, 1999 – later
The Weasley girl is watching me again. She grins whenever I catch her.
It gives me anxiety.
We play the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes tomorrow, and although they are no match for us, Potter's insisting on trying out new drills to prepare for Magical Transportation next weekend on Halloween.
The Weasley girl keeps passing to me whenever I'm open, congratulating me on scoring, trying to make small talk with me on our breaks.
Her change of heart has transferred to Potter, who is also behaving uncharacteristically kind to me.
I feel like there's a joke I'm not in on. It sours my mood.
Then, after practice, I see one of our Beaters flipping through the Prophet. He whistles.
"Malfoy, you have excellent taste."
I see the top of Katya's head from where he turns the page to the Keeper.
"She's a family friend," I say, grimacing. I wanted the gossip, didn't I?
"Wish I had family friends like her," one of them says and the other one laughs.
"Oi!" Weasley calls. "No misogyny allowed in the locker room!" She kicks the shins of one of them. And I see her eyes take in the Prophet as they chuckle. She blinks down at the picture of Katya and I, seeing it for the first time.
I have to avoid her eyes as she looks up at me, glaring as if I've dumped her best friend for a second-rate version, and then paraded her around town. Which, according to Skeeter, is exactly what I did.
They invite me for drinks. I decline. Potter forces me to go, even as the Weasley girl glares at me. I leave after one drink, and everyone complains, begging me to spend more time. I'm still confused as I pop into Diagon Alley, shaking off the feeling of Goldstein's drunken goodbye hug.
I'm not sure I much care for "friends." They're fickle things.
I'm approaching Cornerstone when suddenly a small grey-haired lady jumps in my path.
"You should be ashamed of yourself, Draco Malfoy!"
My eyes widen as I trip to keep from running into her.
"I'm sorry?"
"Hermione Granger would have made you a better man by far – and although I have no idea why such a bright girl would ever lower herself to be with you, you deserve Dragon Pox in the nastiest of areas for breaking her heart!"
She shoves me, and then marches away.
I'm dumbfounded, standing on the cobblestones and deciding that, no – I have never seen that woman before in my life!
I look back at her. A Cornerstone bag clutched in her withered hand.
I look to the stone building on the corner, with the slightly-off front door.
Breaking her heart.
I move toward one of the side windows, and peek in at her. She's behind the counter, smiling with a customer, writing in the ledger book.
I shake myself. Ridiculous. She looks well-rested and content.
The front door swings open as I reach for it, and I'm face-to-face with a nine-year-old girl – pigtails and glasses. She gasps when she sees me. Then bursts into tears.
"Why – why would you d-do that??"
I stare down at her. "What?"
"You w-were so perfect!" Her little brown eyes look up at me, glassy and red-rimmed.
"What?"
Her father appears behind her.
"Sorry, Mr. Malfoy." He takes her shoulders. "She's a big fan of Miss Granger's." He gives me an apologetic smile and steers her away down the street, her hiccups echoing as they go.
Perhaps the kiss with Katya was the wrong thing to do.
The door falls shut in front of me, and I look in once more. She's reading a book behind the counter, smiling to herself.
I roll my shoulders. She's fine. Her fan club is simply over-reacting.
A woman enters, passing me in the doorway, and sends me a glare to rival Ginny Weasley's.
But maybe I'll come back later when there are less spectators.
I occupy myself in Diagon Alley for the next few hours. Finally, at quarter to six, when I see the last of her customers trickle out the door, I take a deep breath and let myself in.
"What do you want?" she hisses at me.
I'm rethinking my plan. But I paste on a cocky smirk and try to play the part.
"A book? Do you sell those here?"
She grimaces. "We close in fourteen minutes. You had to come at the very end of the day?"
I reach the counter and lean as casually as I can. "Well, I didn't want any onlookers for our torrid love affair, Granger."
She looks away, and I think I spot pink on her cheeks. I tell her the book is on reserve. She bends to retrieve the book, and I'm ever so grateful that there's no one else here to catch me drinking in the sight of her.
Mother has picked another pink and bedazzled book. She raises a brow at me as she sets it on the counter.
She's quiet as she opens the ledger book. I think of her sharp greeting to me, the people on the street today, even Mother's reaction.
I'm supposed to "fix this," according to Mother.
I'm about to ask her something to gauge her mood when she speaks first.
"A reporter asked me today if you let me down easy." She continues to write in the ledger, with a quick glance at me. "I assume you were seen with one of your girls last night?"
One of my girls. The phrase irks me.
"Yes, Katya," I say. And I can't help myself. "I have six more to go. One for every day of the week, right?" she frowns up me, quill scratching deeply. "Which reminds me," I say, leaning down onto the counter comfortably. "Do you have five more copies of this?" I tap the book she's logging.
She rolls her eyes, and with the perfect amount of swottiness, says, "You know Draco, just because you give them books doesn't mean they'll learn to read."
The ease with which she hums my name. The clear and strong dislike of the girls I'm dating.
I can feel my blood heat, and as she checks in with me to see her joke land, I push further, begging her to play this game with me.
"Granger. If you miss being pictured in the papers with me, I think my Wednesday girl might be a bit of a dud. The day's all yours."
It catches her off guard, but she recovers with a frown. "I'll have to check my calendar and get back to you."
She tries to get rid of me. She hands me the book in a paper bag.
"Gift wrap?"
She produces a gift bag and tissue paper, and hisses, "Do it yourself."
She stomps off, taking the books she needs to refile, and ends the conversation.
Well, Mother wouldn't really call that "fixing it."
I'm about to leave when I see the corner of a newspaper peeking out of the rubbish bin behind the counter. And like a magnet, I'm pulled around the counter to the picture of Katya kissing me last night.
I assume you were seen with one of your girls last night?
She knew. And she still brought it up.
That familiar pull in my chest. The hope that she cares even the slightest about my social life.
I can't leave now. She'll have to force me out. I have to know...
I find the wrapping paper roll under the counter, and that's how she finds me: smarmy and making a mess at her station.
"Malfoy! You can't be back here!"
"You said 'do it yourself!'"
She moves behind me, coming to the wrapping paper area and huffs. She frowns down at the counter. "You don't want a gift bag?"
"Well, Katya received that beautifully wrapped gift that you prepared last week, so I can't go giving the rest of them second rate wrap-jobs. Best to be equal with things like this."
She mutters something condescending about me, but I can't hear her. I'm focusing on the way her lips press together at Katya's name and her agitation as she begins wrapping the book.
I watch her fingers as they move, the Muggle way again. I should step back from her. We're very close now that she's behind the counter as well, and I can feel the heat from her. She has to tuck her elbows in to keep from knocking me as she works. But I don't care.
"How's your dragon project going?"
She stops and looks up at me, eyes curious.
"Er... fine. I submitted my initial proposal yesterday, so Mathilda will review it and make the necessary adjustments before submitting it to Kingsley – er, Minister Shacklebolt."
She's fumbling with tape when I ask, "And have you sat down with the Minister, to discuss it?"
She glances at me again, as if confused by my interest. "Um, no? That's what the proposal is for."
How could she be so intelligent yet so unwise?
"You are close, personal friends with the Minister of Magic, having fought a war with him. If you can't take the man to tea – or coffee – to discuss a passion project, then what good is that friendship?"
"How very Slytherin of you," she scoffs, and I bristle at the words. "A friendship cannot be just a friendship. You have to gain something from it, is that right, Malfoy?"
I'm stepping into her and wondering how much I could "gain" with her as I say, "And how very Gryffindor of you. Bravely beginning something without any idea of how to get what you want."
I see her take a shallow breath and look up at me. I'm so much closer to her now. Haven't stood this close since the hallway at the Ministry. I see her eyes roam my face, and I think of all the different ways my words can be interpreted. And I want to push her back against the countertop, feel her body along mine and discuss all the ways the two of us can get what we want.
"All good down here?" Morty. "Mr. Malfoy! What a pleasure again!"
I step away from her and smile at him. I make apologies for keeping her late, but I don't retreat from the counter. I stay at her side as she hurries to finish the ribbon on my gift, her body stretching to accommodate my presence. I can feel her breath and I can smell her hair.
She stuffs the book in the bag.
"Thank you for shopping at Cornerstone Books." She glares up at me. And I'm still dreaming about what would have happened if Morty hadn't interrupted when she pushes past me – hips against my thighs again.
I bid Morty a good night, and Apparate home.
Mother is in the library. I toss the wrapped book on the settee.
"Why do you keep getting these wrapped?" she asks.
I shrug. "It pisses her off."
She scowls at me. I turn to head to the kitchen, to find what's left of dinner.
"Any message for your father?"
I stop, the warmth of the past hour leaching from me. I turn to her.
"Father?"
She begins unwrapping her book with delicate fingers.
"His October visit. I'll be going tomorrow." She glances up at me like everything is normal. "Anything you'd like me to discuss with him?"
So many things race around my brain, and I think about asking to go in her place. I have so many things to finalize with him.
"No," I say. "Tell him... Tell him hello, I guess."
She studies me, and nods.
I head up to my room, not hungry.
~*~
Sunday, July 13, 1997
I didn't sleep well last night.
But of course, I haven't slept in two weeks. Not since the Astronomy Tower.
I climb from bed, stumble into proper clothing, and make my way to the drawing room, ignoring the sounds of other people in my house. Mother and I have been taking tea in the mornings in the drawing room while our houseguests ravage the breakfast table. There's a cold, hollow wind in the hallways – a feeling I've come to associate with the presence of the Dark Lord in our house.
I gather myself, and turn at the base of the stairs, pushing open the drawing room door.
My feet stop when I see my Father.
He turns to me. I haven't seen him in the flesh for over a year. He's so thin. He's still in his Azkaban robes. This must have just happened.
My mother stands next to him, holding his hands.
"Draco," he says. His voice is thin too.
I move toward him. I reach my hands to hug him, to hold him as if no time has passed.
His hands clutch my shoulders, stopping me, staring at me.
"You did well, son."
There is a muscle twitching at his temple.
"Severus had to step in, yes, but they shouldn't have expected more from you," he says. His eyes are glued to my face, like he sees something he hadn't before. "Bella told me about the Vanishing Cabinets. Very good, Draco." He presses a cold hand to my cheek.
If my father ever was released from Azkaban, I imagined him waking me in the night, my mother throwing my traveling cloak at me, and ordering me to pack only what would fit in one valise. I imagined a portkey to France, to our vineyards.
"I've spoken to Bella about your future," he says. His eyes continue to drink me in. "Our future," he says.
Mother turns to the windows, and I see her stare at the gardens with empty eyes.
"You will need more training, Draco. More than just Occlumency."
He still assumes Bella is the one who taught me all that I know.
If my father ever was freed, I imagined a trip to Italy to his favorite restaurant, drinking the 500-year-old scotch with him, like we did for my fourteenth birthday.
"They don't expect anything of you, Draco," he says. "So, you will impress them greatly once you've learned from Bella."
"Learned what?" I say, the first words I've spoken in this room.
"Dark magic. The Unforgivables." His fingers are digging into my shoulders, and I can feel my pale skin accepting the marks he indents. "She'll start with you today. Resisting the Imperius Curse, then casting it." He nods vigorously. "You have six weeks before returning to school. The Carrows will be there. If you know the Cruciatus and Imperius Curse, you will impress them greatly."
I swallow. "And after the Cruciatus and Imperius?"
My mother shifts at the window, pressing her teeth together.
"Then she'll prepare you for battle." He smiles at me. His teeth are yellow. His temple twitches.
If my father ever returned to us, I imagined the three of us would run away from all of this. We wouldn't look back as Great Britain destroyed itself. And we would be happy.