Chapter three "It's way too broke to fix…"

To say that the relationship between Draco and Lucious Malfoy was anything but good was an understatement. The air between the two had never been so tense and hostile as it was now.

Draco insisted on going along with his plans, even if it meant to walk around in the clothes he had on his back, and to sleep on the cold floor until he had saved up enough money to buy a decent bed, and new clothes.

Lucious was one step from locking the boy up in the dungeons and throw away the key in order to keep him at the manor, and thus ensuring his will.

Narcissa was torn in the middle, although she supported her son a great deal more than what she did to her husband.

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One night when it had been really bad, his mother had come into his room in the dark.

She had at first stood in the dimly lit doorway for a moment, before closing it and walking over to his bed.

He could hear the soft rustling of her dress, and the light tapping of her shoes as she walked across the floor, and sat down on his bed.

"Draco…" she whispered, and brushed away some stray strands of his white hair "Are you awake?" he turned around to look at her, thankful over the healing skills of the elves, who had taken away any sign of bruising and internal injuries.

"I am" was all he said. It was probably at that moment his mother realised her baby had become a young man. His voice had been darker, and she saw none of the childishness in his eyes any more.

"You are growing up" she finally managed with a sad voice, caressing his face in search for the child she once knew.

He rose to a seated position and took her hand into his. As he gently kissed and placed it on his cheek, she felt a lump building up in the back of her throat. Her baby boy had become an adult. And a stunning one as well, she reflected as she saw his blond hair falling freely to his face. She had never seen him in another hairstyle than the slicked back one, and found this style appealing. He had gotten someone to cut it shorter on the back, and layered longer at the front. (an: for a better idea what  I had in mind, see Squall from Final Fantasy. No idea which one though)

"What did you want to talk about, mother?" his calm voice snapped her out of her reverie, making her realise she had been thinking back to when he was younger, and an exact copy of his father.

Nodding to rid her self of the last shadows of her memory, she looked at her son with new eyes. 

"Why do you keep doing this?" her voice was a whisper as she tried to find the words. "Why do you really wish to move from this house, Draco?" there was no trace of the flimsiness she so often had put on in the company of others. "Is there something bothering you?" she already knew the answer to the last question. But she still needed to hear it from him.

Draco only sighed and swept his hand over the music crystal on his bedside table, and let the soft tunes of "The Crawl" fill the air.

"I heard this song when I waited for the two of you at Kings Cross." he looked out the window, and tried to find a way to explain what he felt. "You were late, and I sat down to wait. Bored out of my wits I had ventured out to the muggle waiting hall. It seemed like I was the only one there, until I heard this song playing from a corner of the room. Walking over there I saw this young muggle, dressed in black velvet, lace, and looked much like a witch in her way of clothing. Only her was more…."he paused to find the word "…. vampyric. More depressing. As was the music she was listening to." Here he nodded to the music orb.

"I asked her if the seat was taken, to which she only looked up at me, and said something that sounded like "'course it is." 

"So I sat there for a moment, and when the song had repeated itself for I don't know which time, I asked her who it was. She answered only Placebo, the songs name. We sat there in silence before she went off to buy some coffee from the machine, and began chatting about friends and the meaning of being true to oneself before I heard you calling,"

"She's the one you were going to give the change to?" said Narcissa who remembered that time. He only nodded.

"As I walked out the door, she called "Hey Blondie! Have a merry Christmas" and something I didn't really catch. When I returned with the money, she was gone." Draco stopped and looked back at his mother as the song began once again.

"And what has this song to do with your moving?" she asked softly.

"It retells how I see my life in this place." He said, looking down onto his hands on his lap, determined to avoid the first time he really heard it, and what associations he had with it.

"Sometimes good things happen here, but that's a rarity. The relationship between father and I is long since broken, and nothing can fix it anymore. I don't like him at all. I can't stand his presence. Everyone expects me to be him all over again, but I'm not. Every day is to put up an act to the real world; hearing small hissing comments of "do this" and "don't do that". It is suffocating, mother.

"Every day I expect to break down, and let the masks fall to every one to see the reality. But until that day I have to crawl and do as He says," he put an emphasis on the word "he". sighing he looked up at his mother. "The only thing that keeps me sane is you and the thought of one day escaping this prison."

His mother now listened to the sadness in the song, and the way the singer managed to, in a scornful, almost acidic tone, retell a reality she knew all too well. Draco stood up from his bed and walked over to the French windows that lead to his private balcony. As he leaned to the doorframe, and touched the cold glass, Narcissa saw in his pain in the reflection.

Without a sigh or a word she rose up from the bedside, and walked over to the bedroom door. With a final glance at the young man dressed in a grey tee-shirt and dark green silk pyjama trousers she finally felt it was about time to let the dragon out of his dungeon.

"I'll see what I can do, Draco," she said so low he barely heard her. "No promise, but I'll do my best…" and with that she left, leaving the boy turning into a man to look at the void she left behind.

"Thank you mother…" he whispered before returning to bed, well aware that he'd be going back to Hogwarts in the morning.