Disclaimer- J.K. Rowling owns all of the Harry Potter characters, not me.
Chapter One
The Malfoy Manor
"Put your napkin on your lap." Narcissa Malfoy sternly reminded her son as they sat down to the dinner table one cold, dreary night. The walls of the dining room in the Malfoy Manor were blood red, and the table a dark colored wood. A fire roared in the fireplace, but instead of bringing the room warmth and happiness, it added to the gloom.
"Yes mother." Draco said, in a false cheery tone. His mother annoyed him constantly about pointless table manners. Who cared whether he had a napkin on his lap? Draco rolled his eyes in an over-exaggerated manner when his mother was not looking.
Draco began picking at his food. He hated this food, he hated his mother, his father, his life. This house was hell for him, and he couldn't wait until the day he could leave this shit hole for good.
Draco stabbed his fork violently into his steak. His mother looked at him, smiling falsely he nose sticking up even farther.
"Why does she look at me like that?" Draco thought, annoyed. He imagined his steak was his mother's obnoxious smiling face, and he stabbed it repeatedly with his fork, each time more violent than the last.
Narcissa didn't even notice this sudden turn of anger in her son. She just went on chewing her own piece of steak, oblivious to the world around her. She didn't even notice when Draco slipped a steak knife into the cargo pocket of his khaki pants.
After his steak had been turned to shreds of meat, Draco began to eat it. He chewed angrily, causing pain in his jaw. After he finished his steak, he shoveled mashed potatoes in his mouth, trying to finish dinner as quickly as possible. He would do anything to get away from his mother right about now, even if it meant throwing up after dinner from eating to fast.
The Granger House
Hermione sat down at the dinner table after another trying day. Summer wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be a time for relaxing and getting a tan. Hermione, however, could do neither of those things because of all the pressure she was under.
Hermione was forced to babysit, volunteer at the local animal shelter, walk the neighbor's dogs, and work at her part-time job at the Crispy Chicken fast food restaurant. All of these things were forced upon her by her parents.
"How was your day dear?" Hermione's mother asked, as Hermione threw herself into one of the kitchen chairs. She was starving and exhausted, but tried to hide it from her parents. They expected so much from her, and expected her to be perfect at everything.
"It was great mother, just great." Hermione said, trying to sound cheerful. It was very hard, because, the truth was, she just couldn't handle all the stress she was under. She was about to snap.
Hermione's parents beamed at her as she helped herself to some of the mystery casserole that her mother had made for dinner. It was brown mush with green chunks of something in it. Hermione figured, well actually hoped, it was broccoli and not something else. Hermione, however, was so hungry, that she would eat just about anything at this point.
Hermione wolfed down her food, barely even tasting it, which was probably for the best. Her mother could be a good cook if she tried, but apparently this was one of the nights she just threw stuff in the refrigerator together to make a 'meal.' Hermione thought this was ironic. Her mother expected perfection, but didn't follow the same principles.
"Do you like it darling?" Hermione's mother asked. "One of the dental hygienists at work gave me the recipe."
So it hadn't been one of her mother's leftovers dishes. It was an actual attempt at a recipe. Hermione called these mystery meals. Of course, her mother knew nothing about this nickname. She thought Hermione absolutely loved her cooking.
"It's delicious." Hermione said, helping herself to seconds to please her mother.
Mrs. Granger beamed. "I thought you would. I made it just for you."
Hermione smiled back at her mother. Apparently Hermione's mom hadn't picked up on the fact that Hermione had hated casseroles for all of her life.
"Oh well," Hermione thought to herself. "She'll pick up on it eventually."
The Malfoy Manor
When Draco had cleared his plate, a tiny house elf came into the dining room and cleared both plates from the table. Draco began to get up from the table.
"Wait Draco honey," his mother said, stopping him in a half-standing position. "We're going to have desert."
An even smaller house elf was now making its way across to the table, holding two desert plates in each of her miniature hands.
"I'm not hungry." Draco replied, standing all the way up.
"Well you don't have to eat." his mother, giving Draco a phony smile (even though it was her real smile, Draco thought it to be very fake).
Draco turned his back towards the table and headed towards the door. She could have said something to him all through dinner. She just had to wait until he was about to leave.
Draco heard a sniffle from behind him. Rolling his eyes, he turned around to see his mother dabbing tears off of her bony cheeks.
"E-ever s-since your f-father was s-sent to A-az- that p-prison, I-I've t-tried to b-be good to y-you, I-I really h-have. D-do you r-really h-hate your own m-mother that m-much that y-you won't even s-sit and t-talk to me a-after d-dinner?"
Draco could have answered truthfully to his mother and said yes, but he decided against it. He would have had to listen to her wail all night. Draco sat back down in his chair and pretended to be interested. If his mother wasn't upset she could get through what she had to say faster.
Narcissa quickly wiped her hands on her sleeves before talking to Draco. "I was doing some thinking." she began.
Now that surprised Draco, he didn't think his mother did much thinking at all, but he let her continue, nonetheless.
"I was thinking that maybe we should make a name for ourselves as good citizens to the magical community." Narcissa began.
Draco stared at his mother. "What the hell is she thinking?"
"So, I signed you up for this special program."
"Great," Draco thought, "she's putting me in a mental institution."
"This program is for teenaged wizards who have magical parents that are interested in seeing how wizards with muggle parents live."
"You mean mudbloods." Draco said.
"You can't call them that now. You are in this program." Narcissa stated. These were her first words actually close to a command that she said to Draco since his father was sent to Azkaban that didn't have anything to do with table manners.
"What do you mean I'm in this program?" Draco said, starting to get angry.
"I signed you up. You are going to live with a wizard with muggle parents for the rest of the summer. You'll just return to Hogwarts after that."
"What the hell were you thinking? I mean, are you crazy? Even looking at mudbloods without scowling is an insult to our family name!" Draco shouted.
"You must think about this. It would be helpful to our name if we showed that we don't only like purebloods."
"But we do only like purebloods!" Draco bursted, standing up from his chair. "That's everything out family stands for!"
"Draco," Narcissa said, trying to remain calm, "We don't have a family anymore, that's just it. Your father is in prison. Without him we are nothing!"
"We are only nothing if we allow ourselves to become nothing! And that's what will happen if we go making friends with MUDBLOODS!"
"Muggle borns," Narcissa hissed. "And we are not having this conversation anymore. You will go live with the muggles, you will be nice, and you-will-enjoy-it!" Narcissa finished, putting extra emphasis on the last few words.
Draco stormed away from his mother up to his room, smashing an expensive vase to the floor in the process..
"NOW GO TO YOUR ROOM!" Narcissa shouted.
"YOU CAN'T MAKE ME GO TO MY ROOM, CAUSE I CHOOSE TO GO MYSELF!" Draco shouted back, already halfway up the stairs.
Narcissa pulled a small strand of her long blonde hair behind her ear that had ended up in front of her eyes during the fight. She picked up her desert bowl and stared at it. After a few seconds of calming down, she called to the house elf. "Clean this mess up and pack Draco's bags. He's leaving tomorrow."
The terrified house elf nodded and began clearing up the dishes. Narcissa served herself a large shot of vodka and chugged the whole thing, her face remaining expressionless.
Draco slammed the door behind him as he entered the room. He threw himself onto his bed, cursing, and pummeled his pillow until the feathers flew out, mixing with his cries of 'shit' and showering his whole bedroom.
The Granger House
"We have some good news for you dear." Hermione's father said halfway through dinner. "Your mother and I sign you up for a wizard host program."
Hermione looked up from her plate. "This is just what I need, more stuff to worry about."
Mr. Granger continued, "For the rest of the summer, a young wizard, who doesn't have non-magical people for parents, is going to stay with us. Then, that person is going to head off to Hogwarts with you."
"But I have so much to do already!" Hermione exclaimed.
Her parents shrugged this off, as if Hermione could stop sleeping to fit everything in.
Hermione felt her shoulders sink lower than she ever thought possible "Does this person already go to Hogwarts?"
"Of course dear." Hermione's father answered. "They just haven't experience what it is like living with people who aren't magical."
"What am I doing this for?" Hermione answered, trying not to think of who the mysterious guest would be. She knew it wouldn't be Ron, and definitely knew it couldn't be Harry. Ron could just ask to come over any old time, and Harry already lived with muggles. This didn't improve her mood much.
"It will look great on your college application." Mrs. Granger answered.
"I don't want to go to muggle college though." Hermione answered. "I want to have a job in the wizarding world. If I do that, I don't need to go to muggle college."
Hermione's parents looked offended. "But dear," Mr. Granger said, "You are going to become dentists just like us. You're going to take over our practice."
This was the last thing that Hermione had in mind. Her parents should know how passionate she was about being a witch, so why would she do something else with her life? Hermione decided to let it go.
Hermione gathered the empty plates and cleared the leftover casserole off of the table. She scooped it into an empty tupperware and stored it into the refrigerator, setting it up for a later leftovers experiment.
Hermione's father retreated to his den with the newspaper, and her mother was one room over in the living room, knitting.
Hermione scrubbed the table clean after all the dishes were cleared away. She then set on the task of washing all of them. For just a simple casserole, her mother sure had used a lot of dishes. Hermione sighed loudly and filled the kitchen sink with hot soapy water.
Hermione washed pot after pot, plate after plate, and fork after fork. To someone watching Hermione now, it would have looked like they had just had a dinner party for twenty people.
Hermione dried the dishes quickly, just wanting to go to bed. Because the dishes took so long, Hermione had a lot of time to think about her life, and she had reached a startling conclusion. She hated her life, her house, her parents, herself, and she wanted out. Tears dripped slowly out of her larger brown eyes.
Hermione had all the dished put away except for one large knife, in which Hermione had no idea what her mother used it for. She dried it slowly and carefully. Instead of putting it into the knife drawer when she was done, she carried it up to her room, hiding her tears and the knife out of view from her mother sitting in the living room.
The Malfoy Manor
As Draco lay on his bed, shouting curses, he felt a sharp pain in his leg. He rolled over to a normal seating position, with his feet hanging off the edge of the bed. On his right leg, there was a small blood stain, steadily growing larger and larger. Draco studied it for a moment, enjoying the pain before remembering the knife he had put in his pocket earlier.
Draco pulled the knife out of his pocket and studied the blood on it for a little while before raising it over his upturned wrist and making a deep gash through his flesh.
The Granger House
At that exact moment, Hermione raised her own knife over her thin wrist. Tears mixed with her blood as she made her first cut. She sobbed harder, not from the pain, but because of the hatred towards her life.
When Hermione thought that she had bled enough, she rushed into the bathroom that connected her room and the guest room and rinsed it under cool water. Hermione dabbed it gently with a towel, and fell to the bathroom floor, sobbing.
The Malfoy Manor
One of the small house elves scurried into Draco's room.
"Shit!" Draco shouted as he hastily tried to cover up his wound, with his pillow. The house elf pretended not to notice what Draco was doing, and headed straight over to the closet.
"What the hell are you doing?" Draco said angrily.
"Packing for your trip Mr. Malfoy, sir," squeaked the house elf, "It was Mrs. Malfoy's orders to get you ready to leave for tomorrow."
"I'm leaving tomorrow? Shit!" Draco said angrily, standing up from his bed. He then thought about the situation for a little bit longer. He could just ignore the stupid mudblood that he was stuck with and go off and do his own thing. Besides, he would be free of his mother until next summer.
Draco sat back down on his bed, grinning happily at the tiny elf. The house elf looked at Draco, became terrified, and hurriedly (but neatly) packed the rest of Draco's clothes.
"Maybe this won't be so bad." Draco thought, just happy that he could get rid of his mother.
A/N: I forgot to mention that this fanfiction takes place summer before seventh year, but HBP did not happen. So for those of you who have read HBP, then this probably wouldn't make much sense if you were thinking that it took place after the sixth book. Anyways, thanks for reading and please review. I'll try and update soon:)