Empty Spaces

Chapter 49

The formidable Lucius Malfoy, on his knees at long last, reduced to a mere shell of the man he once was. Draco would never have been able to defeat him at the height of his father's power, but Azkaban was clearly taking its toll. And then a hand appeared on Draco's shoulder, warm and safe and comforting. An anchor in the storm; a tether in the whirling hurricane of his own mind. Harry.

"I won't tell you what to do or what not to do," Harry's voice murmured, barely audible. "You're right. It's not my fight, it's not my place, it's not my choice. I trust you."

I trust you.

It was all Draco needed to be pulled back into reality– back to the world that his father viewed with such scorn and contempt, the same world that also turned out to be filled with light and hope and love. Two sides of the same coin, perhaps.

"I could kill you," Draco stared down at his father's condescending sneer, "But I won't. That's not who I am and that's not who I plan to become. You may have given me my life, but now I am sparing you yours. A life for a life. We're through. The game is over."

Freedom felt nothing like he imagined it would, but then again, does anything? Can you really free yourself from the voice inside your own head? But Draco had learned to silence it, pushing Lucius back and down and away, telling his father that he held no power anymore, that his words meant nothing now. Now, Draco had a new voice: His own. It was his own voice that spoke up as the Aurors stormed into Malfoy Manor and his own voice that argued against the proposed Dementor's Kiss that circulated among them as punishment for Lucius' calculated escape. Instead, Lucius was to live out his days in complete isolation, cut off from the world he hated so much. See, Lucius? You won after all. You always talked about the superiority of the Malfoy family; how nobody is to be trusted and how a Malfoy must always operate alone. Now, at last, you are truly alone.

Then he was gone. Gone with the team of Aurors, gone back to Azkaban– for good, this time. Draco didn't know how he knew it, felt it seemed to be more accurate, but in any case, the reign of Lucius Malfoy had finally reached its end and Draco looked on at his father's retreating figure for a final time. Goodbye, Lucius. Goodbye forever.

Except that it wasn't over. Narcissa's hands shook as she tried (unsuccessfully) to convince her son that she was unhurt and unharmed; her face was pale and her eyes fearful as she saw her husband's shadow looming around every corner and in every crevice. And then, for the second time, someone unexpected showed up in the last place Draco expected her to be.

"Draco– oh hi Harry! What's going on, we were told there was an emergency at the Manor, one of the Aurors sent an alert to the hospital and that you might need assistance over here, so I said I'd go since Healer Medlar is still with a patient..."

Sachi Yamamoto brushed the ashes off her lime green Healer's robes as she strode across the parlor.

"Hello dear," Narcissa said, her voice thin and wavering, "So lovely to see you again. Have you met my son's beau? Draco, love, are you sure Harry's the one you want to marry, because you know, Sachi would make a lovely wife for you, too... Imagine how darling your children would look..."

Draco didn't know whether to laugh or cry at his mother's comments– he also would have settled for dying– but Sachi just chuckled affectionately.

"Sorry, Narcissa," she laughed, shaking her head, "Draco's great and all, but he's not really my type. No offense," she grinned in Draco's direction.

"None taken," he replied dryly, glad that Sachi was taking his mother's... peculiarities... in stride. But what struck him the most was Narcissa's warmth and openness: Between her arguably obsessive knowledge of Wizarding genealogy and Sachi's unapologetic pride in being Muggleborn, there was absolutely no way Narcissa could not know about Sachi's background. And yet, here they were, interacting with ease and mutual respect.