The Mudblood

Chapter 124 : Year 6

The fanart of Melody was drawn by https://www.quotev.com/VestaZ :)

The distraction of Voldemort Apparating into the drawing room in a puff of smoke tore my eyes away from Draco, but not before he reached down, retrieved his mother's fallen wand, and then stormed out of the room. The Dark Lord was so preoccupied with the fact that his Death Eaters had allowed his greatest enemy to escape that, in his rage, he didn't even notice me slip out after Draco and follow the infuriated boy out into the Manor's courtyard. No light illuminated the barren gardens, but I could see snow littered along the stone paths—and, of course, the redness to Draco's skin beneath the cuts that marred his face.

"Malfoy—"

"What!" he questioned, whipping around to face me while wrenching his arm from my grasp. The puffiness of his eyes and the wildness of his hair was enough to falter my train of thought.

"I—um—"

"Are you finally going to tell me the truth, Fitzroy, or are you just going to spit out more lies?"

"You—can't listen to anything Rookwood says—"

"Really? So it's a lie, then?" he asked, but I could tell by the vindictive inflection of his voice that he didn't believe that it could have been a lie. His mother was too horrified when Rookwood exposed the truth for it to be anything but.

"It's—not... The part about the Unbreakable Vow is not. But the other stuff—that I'm only with you because I have to be—that's a lie. You-Know-Who was disappointed with your family and decided he needed to punish you all. I am that punishment. I'm going to—taint your precious pure bloodline. And he forced me to make the Vow to ensure it would happen. I'm sorry—I really am. I never wanted to subject you to marrying me—"

Draco's whole body was trembling as he shook his head at me. "You mean you didn't want to subject yourself to marrying me. I heard you that day on the train—talking to Harper and ferret-boy about how we would have children. You thought I was sleeping, but I was listening. That was when I first thought that you really wanted to be with me. But you were only saying that because you knew you'd have to be with me. You'd have to marry me and have kids with me even though you'd still rather be with Weasley—"

"That isn't true!" I exploded, my voice rising to a pitch of despair. "I don't want Fred anymore—I want you. I've always wanted you! I've wanted you longer than I'll even admit to myself—"

"Yeah, sure, you want me until I play a stupid prank on a ferret—"

"I don't care about Smellfoy!" I blurted, but as soon as the false words escaped my mouth, I amended them with, "Well, I do. But that's not why I'm angry with you. I wasn't even that angry about the prank—I was angry about the fact that I thought you murdered Smellfoy and you just let me think that instead of informing me of the joke. The fun part of pranks is doing them with someone. Don't you get that? Why do you think Fred and George love it so much? Because it bonds them. And it bonded me with them. But even that—the stupid prank—didn't make me not want to be with you. It's...this." I motioned back toward the door into the Manor, where evil resided. "It's that you let yourself be so easily manipulated by the other Death Eaters—that you helped them nearly murder my brother and my friends! Don't you see why that kind of cowardice would be unappealing to me?"

Draco's voice quivered with rage as he took a step closer and glared down at me. "It's not like Potter appeared in the room and I automatically said, 'That's him!'; they interrogated me, they demanded to know, and I was as vague as I could have been. I told them I wasn't sure if it was him. But then they recognized Weasley and Granger, and I couldn't deny it. They would have discovered the truth with or without me. I tried to help the three of them. It's not my fault that your brother and his friends were stupid enough to say the Dark Lord's name!"