The Malfoy Project

𝟓𝟒 - 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐥

     ༻❁༺

     In the morning we love again.

     I have always thought Draco to be rough; snatching and pulling, demanding what is his. But he is gentle. Patient, like the first rays of morning light breaking through the clouds. He holds me like I might shatter between his fingers, and for a moment, I feel I might. His hands drag across my cheeks, my shoulders, my arm; and I could have sworn I was made of nothing but air.

     And there are no butterflies in my stomach, like when Monty had touched me for the first time, but a heavy warmth that settles in my lungs, pulsating and glowing, steady as my own heartbeat.

     When it is finally time for me to go, I take my sweet time to pack, folding and refolding each piece of clothing with great precision. Just before I leave the room, he brings me in for one last embrace. We hold on to each other like we were our last dying breaths, pressing our lips together like they have never known any other.

     Somewhere, a clock ticks, the minute hand like footsteps of giants shaking the earth.

     "After the book," I swear. "After the book, we'll graduate together, you and me. I'm walking out of that damned school with you."

     He leans his cheek on my head, but doesn't say anything. He still doesn't believe me. Can't. But I'll show him. When the book is published, I'm going to slip that sickening ring off my finger and give it back to Monty. And he will yell and scream and bring holy hell down on my head and I wouldn't care because this time, I will have my wand ready. This time, I will be brave, because I finally have somewhere else to go — someplace safe.

     So why is there a strange, familiar pang of loss when I Disapparate from their porch?

༻❁༺

     The day I left home to stay at Hogwarts was the first time I saw Thestrals.

     Four days after my father died, Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout came to fetch me, riding in a Hogwarts carriage drawn by four of the creatures. They waited on the street, nickering and pawing their hooves in impatience, as the two witches loaded my luggage into the back — one trunk and two medium-sized suitcases were all I had to show for eleven and a half years of being alive.

     I remember turning back to take one last look at the house. It had already begun to decay in the absence of my parents' love and laughter. And as I watched it diminish into nothing but a tiny speck through the carriage window, there was a strange sensation that overcame me, like I was being dragged under the surface of the Black Lake, looking back up at the sun as the waves closed over my head; sinking deeper and deeper until I forgot what light even looked like.

     That was how I felt leaving Malfoy Manor that twenty-sixth of December. Each step further was a piece of it being blown away from my memory, replaced by a rot that settled into the old grooves and grainy mortar joints.

     And suddenly I realise everything the Prophet said about that house is true. Despite its grand turrets and restored shining exterior, Malfoys' Murder Manor is dead — or at least everything within it.

     It is the monstrous belly of a dragon. Even after the war, it continues to eat and eat, devouring anything of godliness and light. And amongst the ruins, one might see — if they look hard enough — a figure carefully picking its way through the piles of dusty bones: A little boy. 

     A little boy who had been told that the world does not extend beyond the wrought-iron gates that bar him in; who has had every last shred of kindness and hope in his heart scrubbed out with the very same force that had burned his face against the red wool carpets. A little boy trying his best not to stumble, for if he falls, he will be pulled under, never to resurface again.