Two at the Dinner Table
Author Notes: I wanted to write a one-shot that focused on Draco, and in the end, this is what I came up with. I hope you like it and please review at the end of it!
Summary:
"Where's father?" I asked. My mum stiffened.
"Your father isn't going to be coming home tonight, Draco."
This wasn't like my father.
"When will he be coming home, then?"
"I'm afraid to say, Draco, that your father won't be coming home again."
I'm not one hundred percent positive as to why I ever came down stairs for dinner that night. I usually just have one of the house elves bring it up for me. Tonight, though, I finally left the closure of my room and retreated downstairs into the kitchens.
Several house elves were working away, making something that smelled of potatoes and lemons—a nice scent. They told me that it would be ready shortly, and that I should wait in the dining room.
The dining room has always had just two people sit at it—my mother and my father. They never called me down for dinner, because they both knew that I wouldn't listen. Tonight, though, I came down. Tonight there would be three people at the dinner table.
I went into the dining room, only to find my mum, Narcissa Malfoy, sitting at the table with a large book in her hands. She was reading one of her novels again. She only reads novels when she's upset or something didn't go her way.
I sat down across from her.
I picked up he fine wineglass that sat down to my plate and took a sip of the red wine—it tasted a bit like grapes.
"Mum?" I asked my mother once I had sat down my glass. She looked up, and you could tell that she had been crying. Her eyes were red and big.
She sniffed before answering me. "Yes, Draco?"
"What are you reading?"
She showed me the title. It was a quite famous wizarding novel, written by a man in Wales. I hadn't read it myself, but I had heard from other what it was about. A man left his wife while in the middle of a war, and the woman died. Her ghost haunted the man, and the man finally killed himself. My mum didn't usually read this kind of thing, no matter how sad she was.
"What's wrong?" I immediately asked, concern etching my voice.
She looked at me and smiled, though it wasn't a real smile. It was the kind of smile that only mothers gave to their children that just begged them not to worry.
"Nothing's wrong, honey." I instantly knew my mum was lying, but decided not to push the subject.
"Where's father?" I asked. My mum stiffened.
"Your father isn't going to be coming home tonight, Draco."
This wasn't like my father. He always came home, everynight, even if it was just to talk about how his "colleagues" messed up again.
"When will he be coming home, then?" I asked, wanting some sort of explanation for my mother's odd behaviour.
She looked up from her book.
"I'm afraid to say, Draco, that your father won't be coming home again."
This time, I stiffened.
"Pardon?"
"The—the Dark Lord—he—he—oh, Draco, I'm so sorry!"
I sat back in my chair after I heard that, and I begun to slouch. So my father was dead. He would never be coming home again, it seemed.
"Why did he kill him?" I asked my mother quietly.
"He was unhappy with him, again. It—it turns out that—that your father wan't meeting his usual standards."
"Standards?" I asked, not wanting to believe what I was hearing. The Dark Lord had killed my father, one of his most trusted servants, all because he hadn't met his standards? What a load of rubbish!
My mother nodded, before getting up and leaving, not bothering to bring her book with her.
I don't know how long I sat there, but I know that at some point the house elves had come in with several different dishes. I didn't move when they came, but they ignored me.
I finally did get up, though. I walked out of the dining room, into the entry room, and up the stairs. I went into my room after that, and slammed the door in my frustration.
I didn't know what to do after that—I just sat down on the floor and leaned onto my back. I stared at my ceiling as if it had all the answers.
Nobody came into my room that night. Not my mother, not any of the house elves, not one single butler or maid, and, I noticed with a sense of irony in my mind, not my father, either.
My father would always come into my room after dinner had finished. He never had a particular reason, but he did everytime. He did go a bit hard on me, true, but he always had a reason for it. I needed to be tough, apparently, before I was out of school. I didn't have a problem with it—as long as my father was there, I'd never go wrong.
But he wasn't there anymore, and he'd never be there again.
When I finally got up that night, I looked at my clock—10 till midnight. I was quite happy that I didn't need to get up early in the morning.
I got into my bed and pulled out a book, copying my mother. The book had no title, and hadn't had a title for several hundred years, for it wasn't just any book. It was the Malfoy book. Such a simple name for such a complex book. In this book, we Malfoys would write any big or important thing that had happened to us. Passed down from generation to generation. I was the most current Malfoy to be in posession of it. Quite an honour. My father had it before me, and my grandfather before him. I'd never written in it, before, though, and desperately wished that I didn't have a reason to—but I did.
I pulled out my quill and bottle of ink. I dipped my quill in, and twisted it idly between my fingers, thinking of how to phrase it.
And then the correct words floated into my head.
On this day, Lucius Malfoy is murdered, under the power of his master.
A date scribbled itself on there, and I snapped the book shut with a loud 'snap', before stuffing it back on the shelf.
And then, as I was about to fall asleep, an ironic thought entered my head.
"There'll never be more than two at the dinner table."
End.
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