a rose by any other name

chapter thirty-two ❃ our own heaven

The last five weeks of my life have seemed to drag unbearably, the only thing I can even remember doing is reading and writing. I had kept my promise and after a week of the summer when I had received my first letter from Cedric I hastily replied. I didn't have much to say in my response, which mainly consisted of 'I love you' and 'I miss you' . Cedric however, sounded like he was having a wonderful summer. He told me all about the trips he had taken with his father and all the other ones they had planned, he told me all about what his family was like and how he had spent a lot of time with the Weasley's. He said he was missing me so much and that he couldn't wait just to see me again, and oh neither could I. I was quite literally counting down the days until I would see his gorgeous face again, I had one day to go, if that, it was more like two hours now.

I had also been in contact with Draco; however, he did not seem to be having such a wonderful summer as Cedric. One of his letters in particular had truly broken my heart for my blonde-haired best friend;

Dear Ris,

How are you? I'm so sorry I've taken such a long time to reply to your last letter, but things here have been getting considerably worse. Mother and Father are now arguing every night, they shout and scream, and I can even hear my mother crying most nights. My father is a coward, he will do whatever Voldemort asks no matter what, I've learnt now that my mother never wanted me to get the mark; I often hear her complaining about how I'm just a boy and that I don't deserve this – that you don't deserve this. My father's reactions to this have been... violent. He even told Voldemort that my mother was wavering, he's terrified of him, truly terrified and my mother is losing her patience with it. I have a feeling she's going to leave, but I'm not even sure if she can – I know, and I'm sure my mother does too – that he would send people after her if she left. I know she's scared and so am I.

Ris, I miss you so much, I need you here, it unbearable alone. I miss your little jokes and how you always know what to say to distract me. I can't wait to come back to Hogwarts and just get away from all this, from them, from my father. But I feel so guilty leaving my mother alone with him – at least when I'm here I could protect her if necessary. I also believe that something really bad is coming, father is being called out almost every day, and the days he doesn't go out all of the other Death Eaters are here. I haven't been allowed to attend the meetings either, they said 'we will be called to duty when it is required' like what does that even mean? I've been listening to their meetings and I'm not sure, but I think Voldemort is planning a fight... a war. Between him and I can only assume Dumbledore or maybe Potter? Father keeps saying that he's proud of what we're going to be asked to do... but he won't tell me what. But Parisa, I know and so do you that whatever our next task is going to be, it's going to be bad. We need to prepare ourselves for the worst.

Anyway, please write back to me asap, your letters are the only things keeping me grounded – I don't know what I would do without you Ris honestly, I hope your summer is going at least a half better than mine.

Yours truly, Draco.

P.S: Pans said she was going to write to you, that's great! Has she?

I responded to that letter before any of my others, I could imagine what Draco was going through but I couldn't even begin to imagine how bad it was, here I was actually free from all of that. I prayed every day that Draco was doing okay and always felt so relieved when I received another letter from him.

To my surprise, I had even heard from Pansy, she didn't say too much; she had just told me the odd thing about her summer so far and that she just wanted to make sure I was doing okay all by myself. I was happy she was finally being almost perfectly normal with me; she really did make me feel better and it was horrible when she couldn't even look at me. But, even Pansy, my friend who was still slightly uncomfortable around me had managed to write back to me; my father on the other hand, had not. I still hadn't heard from him; I couldn't even remember the last time I'd heard from him, but I was pretty sure it was coming up to a year. It was really hitting me hard; the Rosier owl had let me know that she had found my father, he had received my letter. But he hadn't written back. I was... disappointed? I'm not quite sure, it wasn't unusual for him, to be distant, him and my mother had always been. But at the end of the day, my mother died. She died and he hadn't said anything to me, if I hadn't sent that letter – which I wish I hadn't – I might as well be dead to him. I hated him. I always felt guilty about saying I hated my parents, always sure there was someone somewhere who had it worse than I did. And although Draco's situation was getting pretty close, I didn't feel bad about saying it anymore, I hated him and I wished that I wasn't even in that family, and if it wasn't for the Dark Mark burning holes in my arm, I don't think I would have been.