Winning Over Slytherin | Draco Malfoy

Chapter 57: A House isn't a Home

A   H O U S E   I S N ' T   A   H O M E

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Family isn't defined by blood. A home isn't the place you live in. A home is where you feel safe, where you belong. A home was never a 'place' for me. It's been a person.
It's been you. Always.
~~~

Draco's POV

I looked around at the walls in my room and sighed. She's everywhere. The picture frame next to my bed. All my sketches, all my books, even the new style of clothes I have hidden in my closet are all because of her. She changed me. For the better. I threw my head back on the pillow and covered my eyes with the back of my arm. I should take it down. All of it.

"Draco?" I heard my mom knock on the door and sighed. Great, another meeting.

"I'll head down in a minute." I heard the door open and groaned. "Mother, I just need a minute. I'll head down to the meeting in a moment."

"There is no meeting. Can't a mother speak with her son?" She sat down on the edge of my bed.

"Alright." I sighed and sat up next to her. "What do we need to speak about?"

"You." I looked at her skeptically and she continued, "Something's been going on with you all summer. What is it?" My headmaster died. And I was supposed to do it. And then my girlfriend found out. And now she's my ex-girlfriend. That's what happened.

"Nothing. Too many meetings I guess." I shrugged.

"It has been a lot of pressure. I'm sorry."

"It's mostly been father, not you." I told her and she nodded her understanding.

"Yes well, he's trying son."

"Right." Pfft. Trying. More like forcing.

"Though it's something else. The meetings aren't it. Talk to me. Please." I said nothing for a while and she started looking around my room, taking particular interest in the picture I have of Kat on my bedside table. "What about your girlfriend? Mal, was it? She seemed to make you happy. Why don't you sneak out for tonight and go see her, I'll deal with your father."

"No. Thank you."

"Why not? You jump at a chance to see her whenever you can."

"I just won't, alright?!" She was taken aback by my tone of voice and I immediately corrected myself, "I'm sorry. She just won't want to see me."

"Why not? Did something happen?"

"It's just safe to say she won't be coming around, ever." Or even speak to me.

"Oh no. Did she...?" She asked a question she had already figured out the answer to and I nodded solemnly. "I thought you said she knew, about who you are." I am not a death eater mother. Well, I am, but that is not all I am.

"I told her about that part, she didn't know about my assigned task however."

"Oh, I'm sorry son."

"It's fine. I'm fine. It's not like..." I stopped myself before continuing.

"It's not what?" I sighed in defeat and finally spoke.

"I lost her mom. I had her, she stuck by me so many times, she had so many opportunities to leave. Many of those times, she should have left, but she didn't. And that's what's hurting me. So many times she should've left me, it would've made everything so much easier, than to stick by me for almost three goddamn years, and then leave. Just like that." I snapped my fingers to emphasize how fast she had cut me out of her life. My mother opened her arms for me to lean into them and I realized a tear had already fallen down my cheek. Damn it. I hugged my mother and allowed myself to show a little bit of vulnerability.

"You're home now son. You're safe. You will be fine. You will have so many heartbreaks, and lord knows you will cause them, until you find the right person."

"I don't want to have many." I just want her. "And this isn't a home mom. I'm not safe here. None of us are. At any moment the dark lord could appear and wipe us out." I let my rage kick in despite her shushing me. "The only time I felt safe, the only time I felt fine, the only home I've ever had... is her." That's what I'm terrified of. What if I'm never safe again?

"Oh son. There was a life before Mal and there will be a life after her, you just have to find it again." You're wrong. I was never living before, simply surviving. There is a very big difference. Instead of saying that to her, I simply nodded. "Now, go on and wash your face. And head down to dinner, we'll be expecting company tomorrow. After all, you are soon to go back to Hogwarts whenever you're not needed here." Right. A couple more days until I see her again. Amazing. I bet she'll just love to see me. I nodded again and waited for her to head down before standing up.

I picked up a box in my room and started taking everything down and putting it there, taking a particularly longer time on the To Kill A Mockingbird novel she'd given me. I sighed and put it in the box, that being the final touch before closing it and stuffing it in the very back of my closet. There I found the sketchbook full of sketches I planned to show her once I was finished with the sketchbook. I'll never get to show it to you now. Without bothering to flip through it, I started to stuff it in the box when a folded notebook paper suddenly fell out of it. I opened it and recognized it immediately: our promises to each other. The ones we made the night, well technically, the morning after the Yule Ball. I stuffed that paper in my back pocket and put the sketchbook in the box, shoving it to the back of my closet once more.

I have to start accepting it. Maybe you and I were never meant to be each other's 'Always'.