Harry
He knows he shouldening.
Pery had ome two, walking through the house with the same authority that he used to have refet. He had a bag slung over his bak auk under his arm, ink staiered on his fihen he and Drao disappeared up into the library.
Harry k if Drao wao knoas being said, they would have dohe kithen of the living room. Still, that doesn’t stop him from pausihe door wheo bed, wathih from the doorframe.
her Pery or Drao sees him. Harry knows he should walk away, but he an’t, not when Drao’s shoulders are hunhed i aears streaming down both his and Pery’s heeks. He wants to storm ihem both that the interview is over, beause he does not want to see Drao in pain, but that is not his hoie to make.
“If you ould tell people ohing,” Pery says, and Harry gets the feeling that it’s almost over anyways. “Ohing about what you’ve told me here today, what would it be?”
There was a muggle tape reorder between them and a quill floating in the air above, taking down every word, every stutterih. “I know what I did was wrong.” His voie was thik with the tears whe you have to uand that I o do any of that. I a hoie, and then all of a sudden it was kill or be killed.”
A pause.
“And I hose myself.” The breath that Drao takes is more like a shudder. “I just wao survive.”
Chapter 14
Drao
&ime he saw his mother was during the war.
He had been fighting, spells flying all around him, pe, s, the sing all arouhe dust from all the haos filling his mouth and oatih. Drao had just given i that this is it, I am going to die here, a trait I ever thought was right whehe dust, an ave seing away from him with only one spell.
Drao had always thought his father was the stro he was wro moment Narissa Malfoy was a woman made of fire, and he olpsed iing himself be weak for a seond. She held him like he was a little kid again, usihumbs to wipe away the tears he didn’t know he was rying and pressing a kiss to his forehead. “We have to go,” She had told him, eyes wide with fear. “We have to leave before it’s over.”
&hought that this meant that they were losing. That they were running from the ministry, and from the Order, and from Harry. That someday, he w to be someone else in a house equally as he one as he was in, a omfortable but paranoid life, and in the middle of Sunday dinner Ron, Hermione, and Harry would beat down his door.
It wasn’t u he realized it was the Dark Lord they were afraid of.
Drao followed her. And theher ihey all turn themselves in, onsquenes be damned and his father fought against her, he followed her then, too, all the way to the ministry, where he handed over his wand and sat iion room, waiting for someoo Azkaban.
Ihough, his father was the o sent to Azkaban. His miven a heavy fine and had to do ommury to pay reparation to the families who lost loved ot probation.
& seen his mother sine.
It’s Harry that talks him into it. “If I had a mother,” He had said, eyes intense a. “Nothing would st her.”
Drao had wao sream at him. To say that he was wrong, that he ouldn’t keep saying thihis and thinking it was fair. That this time, he didn’t knoas like. But Drao still fouing her anyways.
She lives in a ft in Paris, renting from some muggle as tryier but wasn’t quite makihe whole thing smells like paint fumes aed ahe steps are so twisted and narrow that he isn’t sure ho them, but its still a as omfortable and expensive looking as the manor.
She had a ertain way of life, his mother, a goile thianding in the ants to live.
“Drao.” His mother breathes out his hen she is hugging him, rushing him. The guilt threatens to shehinks of all the letters he did even now this is too muh, too soon. “I’m so gd to see you.”
&oo.” Beause he was. He loved this woman, even if she was wrong, even if she only did the right thihe he family o survive. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”
& tell him that it is alright, or that she fives him. He doubts very muh that either of these thirue. She does, however, move aside a him ome in, to this house with its too maraings. Draive him the t at the piture frames showing the image of a family he annot remember ever being and the misshapehe mantle.
“Do you like it?” Her voie has a fht it, a know if it is beause of him or if she simply does he same e she used to. “I took up pail talked me into it.”
Abigail was the girl downstairs, the oh paint stuk under her nails and ing from a rak iheh her ft to get to his mother’s.
His mh, was not someohe woman he remembered would aking a pottery ss, and would not dispy them out where ahem. It was strao know how fast things an