Disclaimer: Neither the characters nor the song the end line came from is mine...
A/N: Brad Paisley & Alison something's "Whiskey Lullaby"
If there was one word Draco Malfoy had never heard escape from his father's lips, it had to be love. Okay, so he'd heard his father tell him how he loved his standing within the ministry and repeatedly rambled on about how much he loved his perfectly aged bottle of scotch, but Draco had never heard it directed at anything important or anything that mattered at all.
He certainly never heard the word directed to him.
Of course, his mother told him daily how much she loved him. She smothered him with kisses when dropping him off at Platform 9 ¾, sent letters signed with 'love mum' almost daily, and practically tackled him to the floor during his holidays from school.
There wasn't a day that went by that his mother didn't tell him she loved him, and he her. Just because he ranted and raved about his father doing this and that day after day, didn't mean his father was his favorite parent. No, he was a momma's boy through and through and never intended to be anything but.
Not that his mother was soft and his father were cruel. In no way was that the scenario. Actually, it was quite the opposite. When he got a bad mark in a class, his mother was the one to take away his allowance for the week. If he fought with Harry Potter, his mother was the one who sent him howlers and waited until he came home to ground him for a week of his precious holiday. And if he acted like a spoiled brat, it was his mother who could bring his ego down a notch with just one hard look.
His father on the other hand, let him do what he wanted. If Draco wanted to buy brooms for the whole Slytherin quidditch team so he could join it, it was his father who gave in first and then begged his wife for the brooms. If he didn't eat his vegetables, it was his father who would cock his head and (almost) inconspicuously jerk it towards the Golden Retriever lying on the floor at Draco's feet. And whenever he was sent to his room without dinner, it was his father who always brought him a full plate and then sat on the bed and talked to him while he ate so he wouldn't be lonely.
And this was how Draco knew his father loved him. He may not have ever used the words like Draco's mother, but he told him in everything he did. Draco could handle that, he could appreciate that, and he could live with that.
Only, his mother couldn't.
She, like Draco, had never heard the words emitted from her husband's mouth. Not even the day they married, or the day their son was born, or the day he was released from Azkaban. She never heard her husband say he loved her, and it hurt.
Yes, hey had a happy marriage. Well, about as happy a marriage one could have while serving the Dark Lord. They danced and laughed together at social events, they laid in each other's arms night after night while none of her friends even stayed in the same room as their husbands, and he whispered sweet nothings into her ear every chance he got. But he never, not once, told her he loved her.
At first she thought she could live with it. She knew he was trying to tell her every time he bought her a new dress or piece of jewelry and she smiled brilliantly at the twinkle in his eye and told herself that he would, eventually, tell her his feelings with words. But as the years wore on, she knew it was not to happen.
She was sure on their wedding day that he would say it. He didn't. When her son was born, she was confident his tongue would be loosened with joy enough for him to at least mutter the words under his breath. He didn't. The day she visited him for the first time in Azkaban she could feel it in her bones that he would say it then. He didn't. Not even the day he was released did he say it.
So she was only a little hoping he would say it the day she walked out of his life forever.
He knew she would do it someday. He watched her pack up her bags, tears beginning to sting the back of his eyes, and didn't say a thing. When she'd finished shrinking all her clothes, not just a few like the times before, and everything else in their room she possessed, she looked up at him from across the bedroom. She looked… almost expectant, for a moment. But the look was fleeting and she replaced it with grief almost instantly. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out and she closed it and sighed instead.
He turned around abruptly and strode out of the room almost fast enough to prevent her from seeing the tears begin sliding down his smooth cheeks… Almost.
He knew what she wanted, what she yearned for and had since they were teenagers. It was something he couldn't give to her though. Hell, it was something he couldn't give to anyone. He loved his family with a passion and only did what he thought best for them.
So when she left, and took Draco with her, he hit the bottle… Hard.
He began drinking instead of going to work. He blew off Death Eater meetings because he savored the searing pain of the punishment he received. He didn't participate in the final battle, choosing instead to stumble around the manor drunkenly, talking to portraits and house-elves while he sucked down the bottle of whiskey he held in his hand. He even stopped going to Hogsmeade and sent elves instead to pick up the things he needed.
They found him, face-down in the pillow, with a note that said, 'I'll love her forever.'
The End
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