Written for Round 1 of the House Cup Competition on HPFC. Thanks to Sam (MissingMommy) for the beta!
Damn it, Draco thought as he grasped his son's hand, dragging him through the alley with breakneck speed, weaving in and out amongst the crowds of people. How could I bloody forget our anniversary?
He knew that Ginny would be at home waiting for them, and he knew that if he didn't have a gift that she would be disappointed; not to say that his wife was shallow and expected to be showered with gifts at any opportunity – far from it, actually – but there were certain days in which he knew that she would simply require some extra special attention, and their tenth wedding anniversary happened to fall under that category.
But of course he had forgotten until the last minute, and after a bloody long day out and about with his son, Beckett, he found himself back in Diagon Alley, once again searching for something that his wife would love as quickly as possible. And the fact that his son was walking so slowly that he may as well have been walking backwards only added to Draco's frustration.
It wasn't until Beckett had stopped completely, though, that Draco really found himself losing his cool – which was, of course, a decidedly un-Malfoy-ish thing to do, particlarly whilst in public. His son was staring, wide-eyed and unabashedly at a man who had just stumbled from the Leaky Cauldron, and once Draco had caught sight of the man, he found himself staring, too. His robes were raggedy and frayed, his beard was unappealing and unkempt, but this was not what startled him.
It was that he knew the man that made his stomach plummet.
Gregory Goyle had been one of Draco's closest childhood friends, and though contact had been lost between them for nearly two decades, seeing someone he had known and had considered to be a friend in such a state of slovenly deterioration had struck a nerve that made him feel like he could no longer breath.
"Father, what's wrong with that man?" Beckett asked, openly pointing to Goyle from across the street. "Why can't he walk?"
But Draco couldn't answer. All he could do was stare as Goyle staggered from the building, grasping onto the brick buildings for support. Though the Goyle family had never been the wealthiest or the most prosporous by any stretch, they had been rather well off, but as with many other families of convicted Death Eaters, the War had taken its toll on them. It was startling for Draco to see what was in front of him, especially since his own fall from grace had been cushioned by his marriage to a member of the prestigious Weasley family and the support he had received from Harry Potter during post-war trials.
With a quickening heartbeat and a tightening grasp on his young son's wrist, Draco again began to move quickly through the streets, paying no mind to the people he had to push aside or to his son struggling with his short legs to keep up, and forgetting completely why he had been in Diagon Alley in the first place.
Ginny was waiting in the foyer of Malfoy Manor when her husband and son finally arrived. She was angry that they had been gone so long – she had expected them to be home over an hour ago – but she was relieved to see that they were both alive and in one piece. She smiled delightedly as she gathered Beckett up into her arms and held him tightly to her chest.
"Where have you two been all this time?" she said, kissing her husband on the cheek by way of greeting. "You've had me worried sick!"
"We were buying you a gift, Mummy!" Beckett said happily as he wrapped his chubby little arms around his mother's neck.
"Well, that changes nothing," Ginny answered sternly, although her cool gaze was fixed on her husband rather than her son. "You know how I worry, Draco."
"Right, I know," Draco answered with obvious irritation as he pushed past her into the parlor. "I know," he repeated once more right before he slammed the door behind him.
She bit her lip as she thought about following him, obviously able to see that something was upsetting him deeply. Though he was a stoic man by nature, he had, over the years, learned to get past that and talk to Ginny about his problems. But right then, he was so closed off; it worried her. It had been quite some time since she had seen him this way. Even when they fought over petty differences, he would at least speak directly to her face, not storm off like a petulant child.
As she bit her lip, she turned to her son. "Beckett, love," she began, "do you know why your father is so sad?"
The little boy shrugged as he shook his blond locks from his eyes. "He wasn't sad 'til we saw the man who couldn't walk. Maybe Father was scared of the man!"
Ginny kissed her son on the top of the head and sent him off to play before following her husband into the parlor. She saw him facing the window and looking rather uncomfortable as he took a drag of his cigarette. She stood behind him, wrapping her arms around his middle and resting her head against his back, and though he put his free hand over hers, he remained stiff and standoffish.
They were silent for awhile as Draco continued to stare wordlessly at nothing. He put out his cigarette before turning himself in the circle of her arms and hugged her back, his chin resting on the top of her head. "I'm sorry I haven't got you a gift for our anniversary," he said. "You deserve so much better than me."
She pulled back with a start. "What is that supposed to mean?"
He shrugged. "I may have grown up a little rich bastard, but you're worth ten of me, Ginny. You always have been."
"Will you please tell me where this is all coming from?" When he didn't respond, she remembered what their son had told her. "Draco, who did you see while you were out?"
He lifted his eyes to match hers. "Goyle," he said, finding no point in pretending that he didn't know what she was talking about. "I saw Gregory."
Ginny scrunched up her brow. "But he's an old friend of yours. Why does Beckett think you were afraid of him? Did he say hello?"
Draco snorted humorlessly. "When a man nearly falls flat on his face because he's too drunk to walk a straight line, he doesn't normally stop to chat with old friends."
"So it upset you that he was falling down drunk?"
He sighed in irritation. "It wasn't just that he was drunk. It's the way he looked. It was the way he carried himself, the person he has turned into." He paused, his uncertain gaze finally finding its way to his wife's warm, brown eyes. "I'm not one of the good ones, Ginny. I was a bloody Death Eater. I did unspeakable things, worse than anything that Goyle ever did, and where am I now? I live in a bloody mansion with my family like nothing ever happened, like I didn't hurt innocent people and try to help take down our entire society. How is that fair? I don't deserve to live a life like this. I shouldn't be allowed to be happy."
Ginny looked at her husband for a long time before placing her hands on his shoulders firmly, forcing him to not drop his gaze. It was so strange for her to see her husband – who normally held himself with an air of superiority and effortless grace – look so uncomfortable and so unsure of himself. This was the first time she could ever remember him talking down about himself.
"You were still just a boy when the War happened," Ginny said because she didn't know what else to say. "You shouldn't be so hard on yourself."
"And Goyle was just a boy, too! So why is he a shell of a person – a drunkard who can barely stand on his own two feet – and I have a wife and a son and everything in the world that I could ever want?"
She kissed him softly on the lips. "Listen to yourself, Draco. Listen to how upset you're getting over this." She kissed him again. "You may have made mistakes when you were younger, but who didn't?" Another kiss. "The difference, love, is that you regret the things you've done. You've tried to make amends. You wanted to move on. You hate who you used to be." One more kiss, this time even more gently, moving away so slowly that she barely realized that their lips were no longer touching. "We all have our demons, Draco. We all have pasts, and we all try to pretend like they dont have an effect on us, but they do. And they should. You just can't let your demons define you."
The corner of Draco's lips upturned only a little. It was as much of a smile as he'd ever give, and Ginny accepted that. He pulled her against him, hugging her tightly and running gentle hands over her back. He still didn't know what he had done to deserve her – a wife who understood him, who knew what it was like to have a darkness within that she just couldn't let go of, who loved him unconditionally, despite his past – but now that he had her in his arms, he knew that he couldn't possibly let her go.
She was the all that he had to stop his demons from taking over.