Draco apparates to Malfoy Manor. It is his first time really seeing it in four years. He walks through the gate, dodging an albino peacock that struts in his path. He doesn't remember a very happy childhood. It was a childhood spent in luxury, but it wasn't things he craved. He supposed it had been a very lonely childhood. No friends. Just his parents. Well, his mother. His father never spent much time with him. He hadn't thought about that in years. He supposed being back at the manor was drudging up old memories.
He wonders if Bellatrix would be staying here, and is relieved to find she is not. He could feel when she was around. Constant jabs of legilimency into his mind, in short, repeated bursts of energy. It gave him a headache.
He is planning to go straight to his room. However, he is walking past the dining room, when he hears his mother call out. "Draco! Come eat with us." He stops. He doesn't think he could eat, let alone face his parents. But, he has been spotted and there was no way around it.
He enters the grand dining room, to find only two people sitting, his mother and father. An extra place setting had been laid out for him. He sits to the left of his mother, who turned and gave him a small smile. He feels a stab of guilt for not seeing her in so long. A couple letters here and there didn't seem like enough, and yet he didn't know what else to give her.
Narcissa reaches over and grabs his hand, giving it a squeeze. "I'm so glad you are home. Tell me, what have you been up to these past few years. We see so little of you." Draco fidgeted nervously. He could not tell them the truth, that he had been running. He had been running from the reality he helped create. He definitely could not tell them what, or rather who, he had been looking for.
"I've been studying. I went to several old wizarding archaeological sites. I was researching some alchemical properties that ancient wizards studied and used." There, a half truth. Draco did enjoy alchemy. And when he wasn't drinking, searching for some witch to pass time with, or working on his other project, he would study alchemy.
His mother gives him a smile and turns to his father. "That's our Draco. Always took such an interest in the endeavors of the mind." Draco has to fight the urge to snort. That was most certainly not the case. As a child he had been much more interested in the newest racing broom rather than a book. Draco's father seemed to agree with him. "We remember a different son, Narcissa. I remember him to be far too undisciplined for such scholarly ventures. I suspect he has been off squandering his fortune on women and alcohol."
"Lucius, he only just got home. Let's have this conversation later." Narcissa pleads. Draco decides this was a perfect opportunity for an exit. His father would most certainly not be talking about this later and Draco isn't prepared to offer excuses for what he had really been doing with most of his time. "I see I'm not wanted. I'll take dinner in my room." Draco announces, storming out of the dining room. Normally, he wouldn't be so dramatic. But his father's words had offered him an excuse to leave, and he wasn't sure he would get another one. He felt guilty about leaving his mother, but his mother would have to wait.
As he lay in bed, at a much later hour, he couldn't stop thinking about Astoria. Letting her tell the story had been a big mistake. He wasn't stupid. He knew who the prince was. He knew who the king was. As far as who the knight was, why, it wasn't hard to guess.
It was a story he knew the ending to. What mattered more to him, was the way she told it. While he knew the story, he knew not the medium, and he knew not how she saw it. And, the fact that she thought him too stupid to figure out her plan or her stories was insulting as it was amusing.
He really would have to kill her tomorrow. While he knew Bellatrix had likely already forgot about Astoria, he didn't think she would so easily forget her nephew. She would expect him to kill her. However, it was reasonable that he had gone home to rest before doing the deed. A day would be easy to explain away.