Written for 'Weekly Challenge - #6, Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry' #5; Easy

As always, enjoy

-Carolare Scarletus

A Silver Lining

"You shouldn't have come back, sweetheart," His mother said, bringing him into a hug. Draco Malfoy relished in the feeling of her protective arms as they engulfed him into a powerful embrace. He felt every anxious nerve burst at the feeling of her familiar warmth. He closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm so glad you did."

Her confession was quick. As she ushered him through the doors to his childhood home, a sense of dread befell him and Draco was overcome with such anxiety that it threatened his very recovery.

She was right. He shouldn't have come.

While he followed closely behind his mother, Draco thought of all the years he had been imprisoned by the walls that was once his home. How many nights did he dread going to bed? He couldn't count the times when his heart raced with the faintest of sounds, or the number of hours lost to the deranged calamity of fright. The walls were closing in on him; a suffocating chill engulfed him and it was only vanished when his mother touched her hand to his shoulder and smiled at him. It wouldn't be the first time the light saved him.

"Why is it that you're here, Draco?" Narcissa asked him in a calm, gentle voice. "You know he doesn't want you here."

"I had to come and see."

"The media wasn't a good source for you?" she questioned, taking him down a corridor and turning left. She's taking me right to his office, he thought to himself. "He's not the man you remember."

"He isn't a man at all from my understanding, Mother."

She breathed in sharply. "Can you at least pretend to be civilized? If it wasn't for your father-"

"-I wouldn't be here today," he finished, fuming. "If it wasn't for him, mother, I wouldn't have found the light, either. Now, leave us be. I wish to talk to him alone."

Narcissa nodded, watching as her son walked up to the double doors and opened one with a simple flick of his hand. The sound of the door opening was unpleasant. It's been years since anyone dwelled inside the small room, and months since she even dared ventured into it to right the wrong of the past. Lucius was a very spiteful man, and she only hoped since she couldn't get to him, then their son may be able to. Years, it's been. Years of unspoken promises and resentment, she only prayed that the old fool would open and listen. Alas, one could only hope, though.

Xxx

Draco shut the doors behind him quietly, making sure to hear the trademark sound that he was inevitably locked in. Without the slightest chance of escaping, he moved around the room in a manner opposed to how he was feeling: with purpose and unrestrained. He had been waiting for this moment for years, and now that he had the chance to do it, he wasn't backing down.

The what was left of his father, a mere portrait of the despicable man, would listen to him. And, listen he would ensure.

"I told you to never come to place again!" a voice rang out. Booming and terrible, Draco knew exactly where his father was hiding.

He was hidden behind an old tapestry. The face had lost most of its luster, and it was beginning to smell with neglected need. Moved by anger, Draco reached up and grabbed hold of the tapestry, tugging the fabric down forcefully until the face of his father in the portrait was revealed. Disgusted, Draco dropped the fabric and stepped back to examine him. No detail looked out of place; he looked the same as he did when he had died: angry with the world, a bleeding Pureblood with their superior bullshit. Something began to rise inside of him at the sight of his deceased father, and he'd be damned to let him try to find a way out of this meeting.

"I see you're doing well," his father's portrait pointed out. "How my Mudblood daughter of mine?"

"Don't you dare bring Hermione into this," Draco snarled. "She has nothing to do with this."

"Ah," the portrait noted before silence prevailed between them. "What is it that you want, Draco?'

"I want the truth!"

"About?"

"What happened all those years ago?" The time for polite commentary was over. Draco needed answers, and he was going to get them one way or another. "If you dare lie to me, I'll see to it that Mother burns your fucking portrait. Every last one of them."

With his very last doorway to the living world in jeopardy, Lucius took in a deep breath and expelled it sharply from his lips.

"Very well, Draco. I will tell you what happened. My only hope is that you won't hate me in the end."

And, then he proceeded to tell him.

Xxx

Narcissa watched as her only son stormed through the corridors and out the front door of their home. His expression was nothing less but grim. There was a fire in his eyes the likes of which she's never seen. He seemed to be holding something in his hands, too.

As soon as she felt it safe, she whisked herself down to her late husband's study. She found that the tapestry had been replaced. A sound was coming from the other side of the fabric, and when she tried to remove it, a voice on the other side stopped her.

"No, Narcissa…" Lucius said, his voice filled with anguish. "Keep it on."

She obeyed, and in one last attempt to understand what went wrong, she asked," What did you do, Lucius?"

Silence was their only source of comfort until he spoke up.

"I created a monster, and she is going to pay."