Traitor: A Draco Malfoy Story

one

Part I

It was raining on the way home from ballet.

My feet were killing me, but I just had to make it home from the subway so that I could finally go home. It had been a long day, and I had been at rehearsals since 9:00 AM. It was close to 11pm now. I held my keys between my fingers, just in case. You never knew. It was New York City at night. The walk between the subway station and my dingy little foster home was about a half-mile walk. Barbra had the night shift at the Manhattan Mall as a security guard, and John began work at his bakery at 4:00 AM and was probably long asleep, so I knew no one could come to get me. It was okay, I'd walked home at this hour before.

The summer evening air blew drops down the back of my jacket and I shivered. I could see the light on in front of Barbra and John's building, and I hurried towards it, giving each alley a wide birth. I reached the warmly lit lobby and the doorman, Robbie, let me in with a smile. "Ugly night out there, isn't it, Azalea?"

"Totally," I grinned, shaking the rain off my raincoat.

"Say hi to Barb and John for me," Robbie called as I ran into the elevator.

"Will do."

I sorted through my keys to find the one to apartment 4, wiping my feet on the "Wipe Your Paws" welcome mat outside the door. I dropped my wet dance bag by the door and went to get a snack from the kitchen. One of the other foster kids, Rae, was at the kitchen table eating Nutella out of the jar with a spoon and scrolling through Instagram on her phone. "Dude, I could have gotten you," she said, looking up and down at my dripping clothes.

"I didn't know you were up," I laughed. "It's fine, it's like a rinse before my shower."

"Hey, speaking of going places together, do you think you can take me to the garment district tomorrow to get some more fabric for some of the orders I have to do?" Rae had a small business making decorative corsets, flower dresses, and other clothing items.  "I also need to stop by Walgreens and get more foundation, the one I ordered online was too light for me." She gestured toward her dark chocolate skin with her spoon.

I nodded. "Of course. I did promise to take Lilian to Central Park. It's a 50-minute walk but Barbra will probably want her out of the house so she can sleep. We can do a little girls' day."

Lilian was 7 years old, a bundle of energy, and sometimes too much for the elderly couple to handle. When that was the case, Rae and I usually took her to Central Park or a playground to let out some of the energy, and then we'd get food at her favorite dim sum place where her biological mom worked as a server. The little Chinese girl loved seeing the woman, and her mom was close to being able to regain custody of   her. For now, she stayed with 13-year-old Rae, an orphan, and me.

I don't really know what had happened to my parents. I was abandoned, left in a basket with blankets in front of Holy Cross Church where a priest had found me and put me in the system. He and his wife had been my foster parents for a little while until they moved across the country to Montana, and I was placed back in the system. I bounced around from family to family, usually until they decided they didn't want me anymore, but that was okay with me. I didn't usually get attached to my foster families. They weren't family to me, just hosts. Until this family.

Barbra and John had three grown-up kids who didn't live with them, and since John was a foster kid himself, he was passionate about finding homes for young ones like his parents that ended up adopting him. While he and Barbra knew they couldn't adopt every single one, they still wanted their home to be an open place for any of the foster kids to come home to if they needed a place to stay. They truly had hearts of gold.

I had started dancing from a young age, and it was something that each foster family had let me do, because I had worked to support it and because when I was about 6 years old a sizeable check for 1.5 million dollars showed up made out to me on my social worker's desk. It was signed with just a scribble. I was supposed to keep it for college, but I'd rather dance. Barbra and John were fully supportive of that wish, and I was grateful.

I took a quick shower and slipped into my pajamas, then my bed, trying to be as quiet as possible since I shared a room with Lilian. I listened to the rain pattering against my window, its comforting noise mingling with the little girl's soft snores and I drifted off to sleep.