Left Behind (A Dramione Romance)

The Golden Trio

The Malfoy manor was cold. The fireplace doing nothing to warm Draco Malfoy's bones as he sat in the drawing room with his ankle crossed over atop his knee. His grey slacks crinkled at his bent knees in the same way that his brow was crinkling at the material before him. Draco was reading a copy of an extremely old, extremely dull, book on potions and getting nowhere. The silken strands of his hair fell forward again tickling his lashes and he shoved them back behind his ear as he tried for the third time to make his way though the same same paragraph on newt's eyes and their various uses.

"This is useless," he muttered realizing he was just re-reading the same words over and over without absorbing them. He let out an exhausted sigh and rubbed his own tiredly. Yes he loved potions, yes he wanted to be reading about them, it was simply that he couldn't focus. Draco set the book aside and took a deep breath closing his eyes.

He was restless and he wanted to be elsewhere.

This house hardly felt like a home anymore.

The manor had never been a warm and comforting place for Draco though his mother did everything in her power to make it so, there was only so much that freshly baked cookies and treats could do to dispel the gloom from a place haunted with blood and death. Draco shuddered and stood walking over to the fire and warming his hands. He flexed and fisted his fingers, opening and closing, opening and closing. He let out a disgruntled sound and threw himself back into the reading chair picking up the giant tome and setting it back on his lap.

He was craving something, anything, to distract him from the chaos that was going on in his house and life and at the moment this seemed like the best solution. At least mind-numbing ancient potions texts didn't remind him of his actual life...

They reminded him of Hogwarts.

A dull ache started in Draco's chest. Even though he didn't want to fully admit it the truth was he missed Hogwarts and yearned for the comforting glow of the Slytherin dungeons.

Trust you to associate comfort with a dungeon Draco, he mocked himself darkly.

At least that dungeon didn't make him feel trapped.

This house did.

Because of HIM.

Voldemort, their 'Esteemed' house guest. His father, boasted about how the Dark Lord was living with them, while at the same time cowering from their 'guest'.

Draco's mind went back to the dinner party that Voldemort had hosted and how his teacher... Ms. Charity Burbage had encouraged the mingling between Muggles and pure blooded witches and wizards had become Nagini's dinner.

Draco shuddered.

How could anyone live like this?

Why did his parents consider a world where you can feed someone who disagrees with you to a snake preferable to how it was when Dumbledore...

Draco's thoughts stopped cold and he felt queasy.

Dumbledore.

The man who he had be raised to hate, who is father hated, who the dark Lord had tasked him to kill.

Dumbledore who had stood there in the tower looking at him with such a calm acceptance.

Why hadn't he fought?! Draco felt a stinging in his eyes and pushed it away slamming the book closed.

He didn't fight because he was weak and old, a part of his mind said snidely.

And what does that make you? the other part asked back. The young man who attacked an tired old man who stood there helplessly...