Draco's Mudblood - Draco Malfoy Fan Fiction - *Year One*

Photographs

A ray of light from the morning sun descends lazily upon Isobel's face as she basks in its warmth.

She's splayed on the floor of the study in a patch of sunlight, arms and legs out like a starfish. The sun has left a square patch of bleached gold flooring in this spot, surrounded by the original-colored mahogany floorboards that have gone untouched. A breeze slips through the window and settles on her skin. It smells like autumn. Dust particles float in the light, motionless until disturbed and sent into a frenzied dance. Isobel stretches out her toes and lets the sun absorb into her soul.

I need to memorise every detail.

The study has always been her favourite room of the house. She'd fallen in love with this room when she first moved in five years ago, when she still thought this was only going to be a vacation: the faint sounds of foot traffic from the hurried London streets below, the smell of decaying paper clinging to every surface, the thick layers of dust piling on the windowsill. Candles sit in their holders on the table and the shelves, fueled by Jesalynn's magic and love for ambience, keeping the room dim and gold. Isobel traces her fingers over a spot of spilled ink on the floor; similar spots are scattered on every surface from moments of fevered writing. She loves this room, has even set up a makeshift bed here, (even though Jesalynn has told her not to, she has a perfectly good bedroom just down the hall), and so she's spent most nights curled up in blankets and pillows, feeling safest when she was there and surrounded by books.

And oh, the books.

The bookshelves that line the walls, floor to ceiling, hold maybe hundreds of books. There's a book for every genre or topic, fiction or not, and they come in any variety of sizes, some as large as your head and others as small as the nail of your pinky finger. Some are bound in leather and cardboard, while others are covered with silk or bark. There are books in every language known to man, and some only known to the trees and the creatures of the forest. Books with nothing in them, books full of nothing but pictures, books with writing from the top of the first page and completely filled to the very last. There are journals so ancient the paper crumbles at the slightest touch, encyclopaedias and dictionaries, for muggles and not, memoirs from the greats and notebooks full of poems and folders or loose leaf pages. In the five years Isobel has lived here, she has barely made a dent.

Her eyes swivel to the trunk by the door, filled with equal parts clothes and equal part textbooks. Jesalynn had reminded her that there was no reason to bring so many books that weren't required by the school-issued list, but Isobel didn't care, she wanted to take as many parts of this study with her to Hogwarts as she could.

Hogwarts.

She laid back into her sun spot and ran her hands over her eyes. She was really going to Hogwarts. This wasn't a dream.

Without realising she'd done it, Isobel had dragged herself up and sat in front of her pile of blankets, pulling out a small leather-bound scrapbook from under one of her pillows. She didn't want to take it with her to Hogwarts, just looking at it made her feel sour, but she couldn't help but pull it close to her chest.

Inside this small book were photographs. Muggle photographs, showing Isobel's still, unblinking face: Isobel when she was born, Isobel dressed as a bee for her first Halloween, Isobel and her first birthday, Isobel at the beach when she was two. She didn't mind these photos, the ones where it was just her. The one that bothered her the most was the one of her, Chloe and Jesalynn as the park.

It was a very old photograph. Isobel was three, maybe four, and had insanely long black hair. Chloe had tried cutting it so many times, it was too much hair to deal with on a daily basis, but within even a week of getting it cut it would regrow to its original length.

Chloe hated that, so to ignore the peculiar rate at which her daughter's hair grew, she perpetually had Isobel's hair tied into a braid that circled her head, just as it did in the photo that Isobel, now 11, was peering down at.

Beside her in the photo was Chloe, her dirty blonde hair spilling over her shoulder, looking nothing like her daughter aside from their identical smiles. And with her arms around both girls was Jesalynn. She was the only one not looking at the camera, but instead had her eyes glued on Chloe as she laughed.

It was the only photo of the three of them. The three of them, as it had always been when Isobel was little, smiling and together.

Isobel wasn't sure when that changed.

She rose and walked to her trunk by the door, stuffing the scrapbook in and clicking it shut before she could think anymore on it. 

She turned, one hand on the doorknob and the other on the handle of her trunk, and looked out at the room. Her eyes stayed on a pile of books she'd decided to leave behind, vowing to only bring her favourites, and she sighed. She would stay here for an eternity if it meant she could finish every last book.

Instead, she turns the doorknob and steps out, leaving the study and her old life behind her.