Blaire Zabini || Draco Malfoy

36 - The Aunt's Unexpected Helping Hand

Draco clutched at his head, gasping in pain as he dropped to his knees.

"Come on nephew, I know you can do better than that!"

Draco grimaced as his aunt's loud cackles filled the room. Getting shakily back to his feet, he looked up at her gleeful face; hatred pulsing through his veins. She was enjoying this far too fucking much.

"Now tell me, Draco," she trilled, looking at him wickedly through heavily lidded eyes, "should I be impressed or perhaps concerned by how much the Potter boy invades your thoughts?"

Draco curled his upper lip, refusing to take the bait. The truth was, his mind had been full of Potter because he was trying desperately to keep Blaire out of his thoughts. He refused to let Bellatrix see that; to witness what they had shared the night he found out about his father's arrest.

The night that, no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't stop thinking about.

"Oooo, what's this?" Bellatrix said suddenly, her voice piqued with interest. "It appears that my nephew has been a naughty, naughty boy!"

Fuck.

"What are you talking about?" His mother spoke up sharply.

Draco closed his eyes in mortification as Bellatrix's cackles once again echoed around him. He'd slipped up.

"Let's just say, darling sister," Bellatrix grinned manically, "that you wouldn't want to know what's in your precious son's innocent little mind right now."

His mother's face pinched in fury as she stepped out of the shadows from where she had no doubt been anxiously observing. "I think that's enough now, Draco is clearly exhausted."

"Very well," his aunt sighed, twirling her wand idly in her hand, "these lessons were upon your insistence, after all, Cissy."

Relief flooded Draco as his mother swept over to him and started to usher him from the room, away from the aunt who made his skin positively crawl.

He had to endure two hours a day of this stupid Occlumency. Although Draco had no idea why his mother thought it necessary or indeed what it was exactly that she was desperate for him to conceal in his mind.

"It's a vital tool to aid you for your future protection." She simply said, refusing to explain any further.

So he put his trust in his mother and continued on with determination; not only learning how to close his mind, but also to be able to read them.

"Wait!" Bellatrix called just as he and his mother had reached the doorway. "Was that the Zabini girl I saw in your mind?"

Draco froze. He had hoped she wouldn't have been able to identify her.

"Blaire Zabini happens to be one of Draco's closest friends." His mother jumped in defensively. "It is only natural she would be in his thoughts."

Draco looked away not being able to meet her eye. He'd die if she ever found out the kind of thoughts he had been having lately about his 'closest' friend.

"There's a rumour going around that the mother has skipped the country." Bellatrix said with an air of casualness. "The Dark Lord is most unhappy; he had high hopes of recruiting her to his cause."

Draco's stomach churned uneasily.

"Did you know about this, Draco?" His mother blinked up at him, nonplussed. "Did you know that Blaire's mother is no longer in the country?"

He shook his head, suddenly feeling awful. "She said nothing in her letters."

Come to think of it, Draco thought shamefully, over the past three weeks of the summer that they had been owling one another, Blaire had never once mentioned her mother, and he'd never even thought to enquire about her home life, always too busy going on about his own precarious situation instead.