Chapter Twelve

A/N: No reviewers.

As the five figures in the distance finally disappeared, leaving only a tingle of magic in their wake, Draco finally allowed the tears to slip from his eyes and down his cheeks. He tried with all his might to keep his shoulders still, so that his parents might not notice this moment of weakness and leave him alone, but Narcissa knew him too well to be fooled in such a way, sweeping forward and taking her son into her arms, just as she had done when he was still a child.

"Hush, Draco. It's alright." she soothed, gently stroking his platinum coloured hair, while he gave into temptation, resting his head down on her shoulder and allowing himself to cry openly. All the while, Lucius stood at the sidelines. While he and his son had certainly forged a better relationship over the years, it was still certainly Narcissa that dealt with these sorts of emotions, and not him.

"They're gone, Mother. They're gone." the young man cried, mumbling the words over and over to himself like a mantra, and clinging to his mother as he had once done as a child in a thunderstorm.

"I know, my darling, I know. It's alright." the blonde woman told him, clutching him tighter to her. It was breaking her heart to see her only son so broken. He had never been the best of fathers, that much was true, particularly not since the fighting had begun, but ever since they had returned to him, he had been trying desperately hard to be a good father to the four of them. And now Elisabetta Selwyn had taken that away from them all. She had spoiled it, as she always did, taken the children away as quickly as she had abandoned them, and left Draco broken and alone once again.

Five minutes passed, then ten, then twenty, and not one of the three moved at all. Narcissa remained with her arms around her son, both of them having now sunk to the floor, and he continued to cry for twelve of those minutes, before his eyes began to ache horrifically, and the water dried on his cheeks. Lucius remained stood a few feet away from them, unable to see a way for him to be able to comfort his son, as his wife was far more skilled in doing so than he was.

But once twenty minutes had passed, Draco stood, brushing non-existent dirt from his suit and blinking his eyes a couple of times, before nodding his head respectfully in the direction of his father and helping his mother to her feet, then quickly making his way towards his study.

Once he had left them alone, the man's parents shared a knowing glance. They knew for a fact that their son was putting on a brave face, much as he had seen them do over the years. He had been raised in a household that would rather keep harsh emotions to themselves, particularly his father. Though they were a fairly close family, there had still been enough distance put between them by the Second Wizarding War to prevent them from sharing such things. It seemed that they would merely have to wait until he was ready to talk to them, if that time should ever come.

The moment the door to his study was closed, Draco slumped up against it, breathing heavily as he tried to blink the tears back from his eyes. He had cried enough for the time being, and even now that he was alone, he did not want to show such weakness.

It had been half an hour now, perhaps a little more or less; time had no meaning anymore. Yet the pain of being separated from children, the aching hole their departure had left in his heart, had hardly diminished at all.

'I should have been a better father.' he told himself, sighing deeply. 'If I had made more of an effort to find Lissy when we divorced, none of this would have happened. I would have watched my children grow up, and we would have stayed as close as we used to be. Maybe if I had tried harder with them, they wouldn't hate me so much, and if I'd tried a bit harder with them after they came back, maybe I would've had a chance to build the bridges again before their mother took them away.'

Distantly, he wondered what the four would be feeling right now, if any of them would be missing him as much as he was them. He thought that Phoebe would probably be quite sad to leave him, and it was possible after recent events that Capella would feel the same. It was almost certain in Draco's mind that the boys were glad to see the back of him; he had never had the chance to truly explain to them what had happened when their mother had left, and so they had maintained their low opinions of him. However, it was possible that even they would miss him a little.

Crossing to his desk, the man opened the bottom drawer, retrieving a photo album from it that he had not opened for half a decade. The cover had become a little faded with age, the once vivid green leather not quite its former colour, but none of the photographs inside had changed at all, something that the blonde man discovered, once he had taken a deep breath and turned to the first page.

The first photograph was one that he had treasured for a long time. He stood in the grounds of Malfoy Manor, wearing a dapper set of black dress robes and a silver tie. On his arm stood Lissy, dressed in a stunning white gown, the most beautiful he had ever seen her look. Their wedding day was a memory that he had treasured for a long time.

The next few pictures depicted himself and Lissy, each one showing the couple holding a baby, first Rigel, then Capella, then Asterion. Phoebe was missing from this album, for reasons that pained Draco to remember, but now that they were speaking once again, he could simply ask for a picture of the girl as a baby.

There was a substantial gap in the album after that. Given that it had been intended to be a family album, he had never felt right trying to add in pictures that were just of him. Also, it had been far too painful to open the book. It was not so much to do with the memories in the past; it had been the memories that would never come in the future.

Draco cast a glance across the desk, to where the copy of the Daily Prophet that had been delivered that morning lay, untouched. He had not had a chance to read it yet, what with all that had gone on, and thought that it may give his mind a rest to do so.

However, the moment he caught sight of the front page, covered with a huge photograph of himself, his parents and his children from the party the previous night, the man folded the paper and clutched it to his chest, heaving a sigh filled with bitterness and regret.

'Those memories will never come now.' he thought, biting his lip to keep the tears from glassing over his deep grey eyes.'I've lost them for good.'

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