Chapter 14: About Face

The little bit of snow left on the school grounds when they returned for term had melted by mid-January. Slightly warmer weather brought on rain. It also brought Quidditch practice, which Draco couldn't say he enjoyed as much as he had during the nicer autumn days.

Draco and Crabbe were in the library one day when incessant whispers from a few tables away made it very hard to focus. Potter, Weasley, and Granger sat there, and Granger was solely responsible for all the racket. Draco willed her to look over so that she would see him glaring, but her focus was too sharp on lecturing the other two.

Draco went back to his Astronomy assignment. Later, one of the chairs at the table was pulled out. Draco blinked up at Goyle, who started opening up his books.

"All right?" he whispered. "I thought you were hanging out with Daphne."

"Broke up," Goyle grunted under his breath.

"What?" Draco leaned forward. "Why?"

Goyle shrugged. "Dunno, really. She said I didn't like hanging out with her as much as she liked hanging out with me."

"So?" Draco asked. "I mean, she is sort of clingy, isn't she?"

With another shrug, Goyle set his jaw heavily in his hand. "I just wanted to hang out with my friends too."

"So you had to break up?"

"She thought so, I guess."

"Well, that's stupid," Draco said. "Too bad."

"Yeah."

Goyle fell quiet and had a harder time than usual focusing on his homework. Draco and Crabbe took it upon themselves for the rest of the evening to try and cheer him up. All the books that Draco received for Christmas proved a decent distraction. They didn't actually try any curses out for lack of a target, but they were fun to imagine or discuss.

The three of them returned to the library the next day so that they could finish up some things. Draco narrowed his eyes to realize that Potter, Weasley, and Granger were back again as well.

Draco had already suspected before the holidays that the three of them were up to something. There had been that one time in the Great Hall that Granger tried to organize their research, and then Potter cut off anything Draco might have heard by elbowing Weasley. It was impossible to ignore once Draco noticed it.

The stupid thing about it was that Draco wouldn't be half as curious if they didn't act like it was some big secret. He wondered if, without Crabbe and Goyle, he would have an easier time sneaking around. Their comparatively hulking figures and heavy footsteps were hard to miss.

Draco headed alone for the library on a Saturday, expecting that Weasley and Granger would busy themselves while Potter had Quidditch practice. He was coming up on the library door when Neville Longbottom walked out with his nose in a book. He looked up and let out a strangled squeak. His book hit the floor with a loud thud that echoed off the corridor walls.

"Really?" Draco asked as they stared at each other. "Afraid I might bite you, Longbottom? Some Gryffindor you are. I thought they didn't take cowards."

Longbottom picked up his book, hardly daring to remove his gaze from Draco. He scampered past. A thrill of excitement passed through Draco as he pulled his wand out of his pocket. He pointed it at Longbottom's back.

"Locomotor mortis," he said.

Longbottom's legs snapped together. Like his book, he too hit the floor this time.

"I was hoping to try that on someone," Draco said as he approached Longbottom. "Looks like you were in the right place at the right time, hm?"

"M-Malfoy!" Longbottom gasped. "Why did you do that?"

Draco hummed, for Longbottom was already using his arms to get himself upright. He'd thought that was the curse Bletchley had used to stop Crabbe and Goyle shoving Nott's head in one of the dormitory toilets. Crabbe and Goyle had lost control of their entire bodies, though. Maybe Draco had messed up the incantation with another.

Longbottom flinched when Draco lifted his wand again. "Please, Malfoy. Please just stop. N-no more."

Draco scoffed. "All right. Find someone else to perform the counter-curse then. I have things to do."

Keeping to the aisles in the library, Draco peered through the bookshelves to try and find where Weasley and Granger were. He couldn't see them anywhere. Walking across the library floor out in the open confirmed it.

It occurred to Draco on his way toward the exit that it might be in his best interest to perform the counter-curse on Longbottom, lest a teacher find him first and the story come out. Longbottom had moved on, though—leaving his book behind. Draco had no idea where Longbottom would go from there, although he never found him during a halfhearted search of the immediate area.

Longbottom had use of his legs again at dinner, so Draco let it go. He'd dealt enough with the school staff to know that he would've been sniffed out by now if McGonagall or Snape caught wind of what had happened.

Come Tuesday about half-three, Draco tried to do his homework in the common room with Crabbe and Goyle. He was thinking about suggesting they move to the library for some quiet when the common room door slid open and Snape walked in. He raised an eyebrow with a glance toward the gramophone, currently commandeered by the sixth-years. Maybe he didn't remember dancing in September, or just wasn't a fan of the song.

Draco's stomach sunk a little when Snape approached.

"Malfoy," Snape greeted him. "I need you to come with me."

Draco toyed with his quill. "Should I bring my things?"

"No," Snape said after a hesitation. "That shouldn't be necessary."

That made Draco feel slightly better, but only just. Was this about Longbottom, then? But if nobody had actually seen Longbottom with the curse cast on him, then it was only his word against Draco's. Was it still enough for a meeting between Heads of Houses? What about the Headmaster?

Snape led Draco off the main corridor and down the one that went to his office. Draco breathed a little easier for that, but not for long. When Snape opened his office door, Draco came to a halt.

"Mum," he said, surprised. "Father."

They both stood up. Draco would've been elated to see them if either looked happy. Had they come to take him home? Was this that serious?

"I'll leave you to it," Snape told them all, and then he was gone.

Mum's face crumpled. "Darling."

"What's wrong?" Draco's heart pounded.

Mum couldn't say. She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. Father sighed and came over to Draco. He squeezed both his shoulders. "Your grandfather died in the night."

"What?" Draco said, hollow. "Grandfather Black?"

Father nodded. Behind him, Mum quietly sobbed.

"But. . ." Draco's heart took a slow slide into his stomach. "How? Why?"

"Come sit down, and we'll talk about it."

A buzzing rapidly overtook Draco's ears. He nodded mechanically while Father told him some of the details, but he didn't really care, if he was honest. He'd already heard the most important part, that his last grandparent was gone. Mum crying made the whole thing real.

Sitting there in Snape's office with his parents, Draco realized that this was it. This was their immediate family now. It felt so small and unnerving—them against the entire world. They were dropping like flies. Who would be next? When? The fear gripped Draco like a cold hand on his heart. What if the next time Snape called Draco to his office, only one of his parents sat there? What if the office was empty?

Those sorts of thoughts penetrated Draco's shock. He felt stupid to cry in front of his parents when he wasn't supposed to be a little kid anymore, but this scared him. A year ago, he'd had four close relatives. Now he only had two. He was too young to lose everything like this. Even his parents were, really. What was stopping them from vanishing so unexpectedly from Draco's life before he reached their age? What stopped them from not seeing him finish at Hogwarts? Hell, what stopped them from not sending him a note at breakfast sometime later this week?

Mum looked as tired as Draco felt when the three of them resigned to silence. Every once in a while, the sound of students passing was loud enough to penetrate the office door. It was strange to hear laughter.

"Is there going to be a funeral?" Draco asked with a sniffle.

"Next Saturday." Father cleared his throat. "Cygnus was—well. I would imagine that so long as it's allowed, more students than just you will be attending."

"Yeah," Draco said. At least in Slytherin, well over half the house could trace their lineage to his grandfather. "So I get to go home for the weekend, or how will that work?"

"I'll talk to Severus when we see him again. He might have to talk to Dumbledore."

The details about such a thing were lost on Draco. Snape gave them space until Father went looking for him. Even though Mum looked worse for wear than Draco, he still felt slightly embarrassed to have reddened eyes in front of his Head of House. He didn't like feeling this sort of weakness, or to have it so readily exposed. It relieved Draco that Snape had informed the rest of Slytherin about him having lost his grandfather (and let the majority of them know one of their own relatives was gone). At the same time, Draco didn't want to see all the pitying looks he would likely receive once he had to say goodbye to his parents.

It was dinner time by then. Mum and Father walked with Draco as far as the Entrance Hall. As much as it would make him look like an absolute baby in front of the school, Draco wished they could accompany him into the Great Hall. He felt incredibly vulnerable as he walked in alone.

The other Slytherin first-years all sat together at the end nearest the door. Draco slipped onto the bench beside Crabbe before anyone further along the table could mind him too much.

"Hey," Crabbe greeted him. "All right?"

"What do you think?" Draco moodily replied.

"So what happened?" Nott asked with a hesitant tone. "Was he sick? I never heard anything about it."

"No." Draco's fist dug into his cheek. "He just died."

"Was he old?" Blaise asked.

"Sixty-three."

"That sucks."

"Blows," Goyle said.

"Bites," Pansy added.

They all looked around at each other before snorting into quiet laughter. Maybe because Draco really, really needed that, his came on a bit stronger. Behind it was an appetite, so Draco idly put some food on his plate.

He braced for when the first person—Millicent's older sister Gina in second-year—came over to give her condolences about Grandfather. There were others as well, but the majority left Draco alone in the Great Hall. He was essentially escorted back to the dorm by the boys in his year plus Pansy, Millicent, and Daphne, since they were related to Grandfather too. The eight of them all sat quietly in there, not saying much, when Bletchley poked his head in. Behind him was Martina Selwyn.

"Draco," she greeted him with a soft smile, "there are a lot of people talking about your grandfather out in the common room, and of course drinks have appeared out of nowhere. There's some Butterbeer with all your names on it if you'd care to come out. You could sit up by the fireplace with me."

"Erm. . ." Draco was a bit overwhelmed at the offer, but felt it rude to say no if it was to honour his grandfather. "All right."

In the end, Draco was glad he did it. At first it was a bit too much to be the centre of attention when he tried not to cry, but that became easier to avoid after people who'd known Cygnus Black started telling stories about times they'd met him. Grandfather was good friends with Pyxis Flint, Flint's grandfather, so Flint had overheard some fairly inappropriate conversations that had the common room roaring and some of the younger ones blushing (if they weren't confused). Draco was very happy for any tears he might shed to be because he laughed rather than cried.

Draco woke up in the morning with a bit of a sore stomach, thanks to all the Butterbeer and sweets he'd ended up imbibing. A note came from Mum at breakfast to say that she hoped he was doing all right. Draco headed up to the owlery after Herbology to send Juno off with his reply, telling her about how Martina had let him have the best seat in the common room while everyone toasted Grandfather.

Past four, Flint and Higgs drug Draco away from his homework to go for a fly before actual Quidditch practice after dinner. That boosted Draco's mood again and helped him feel less like he had in Snape's office, like his only family had been in that room. Martina checked on him again later, and both Ellie and Hazel gave him crushing hugs when they crossed paths.

Being distracted by everything meant Draco had to stay up a little late to finish the homework due on Thursday. That included some questions for Defense. Draco handed it in at the end of lesson in the morning and yawned broadly on his way to the door. He thought he'd only imagined Professor Quirrell stutter out his name, but he was indeed looking at Draco when he turned back.

"Professor?" Draco said, unsure.

"I-if you wouldn't mind," Professor Quirrell replied. "I-I was h-hoping to have a quick word."

"Erm, if it's actually quick. I have Charms."

"Y-yes, of course. Just a quick w-word."

Hesitantly, Draco doubled back to Quirrell's desk. He idly fingered the strap on his bag while Quirrell fidgeted with his hands.

"I just w-wanted to express my condolences about your g-grandfather," Quirrell told him. "H-he was a good man, is wh-what I've been t-told."

Draco blinked. His grandfather had had nothing nice to say about Quirrell the one time he was ever a topic of discussion between them.

"I didn't know you knew him," Draco said.

Professor Quirrell shifted his weight. "W-well, like I s-said, I've heard—"

"From Regulus?" Draco asked, remembering mention they'd gone to school together.

As if Draco had jumped at him, Professor Quirrell started. A fleeting fear passed over his face, similar to how Longbottom looked every time he spotted Draco in the corridors.

"N-no." Quirrell averted his gaze briefly. "He vanished, d-did he not? I always w-wondered what happened to him."

"Yeah. He vanished."

"Sh-shame. Terrible shame, that is." Quirrell flinched. "Th-there aren't any Blacks left n-now, are there?"

"There's one in Azkaban."

"R-right. Yes," Quirrell replied. "I-I meant. . .yes. Although your mother is a M-Malfoy, she would also still count. A-and—well, she wasn't an only ch-child. I've heard. . .heard great things about your grandfather's ch-children."

Draco had felt his brow slowly slide into a furrow while Professor Quirrell stammered that out. "You mean my aunt Bellatrix?"

Quirrell started so sharply and suddenly that Draco took half a step back. Quirrell's turban had slid off-balance. His hands shook as he fixed it. Quirrell's lip quivered as if whatever he might say in response to that was lost to a paralyzed tongue.

"Professor?" Draco said.

"Y-yes?"

"I should go to Charms now."

Something about the conversation left Draco unsettled. He glanced back at Quirrell before leaving the classroom, and had to run to make it to his next lesson before the bells rang. Even there, once he'd paired up with Crabbe to practice Mending Charms, he couldn't shake a weird feeling off.

Transfiguration next helped, as did time. It felt like hardly any at all had passed when, two Saturdays later, Draco was escorted by Professor Snape down to Hogsmeade so that he could be Apparated home for Grandfather's funeral. A terrible déjà vu plagued Draco as he waited with his parents in the manor chapel's study.

Mum kept looking at the door leading out to the nave. She inhaled sharply when a light knock came at it, and turned wide eyes on Father. He studied her, serious, then nodded with a glance in its direction. He rose from his chair while Mum skirted across the floor.

A woman stood there when Mum opened the door. She had brown hair pulled back into a chignon. Her eyes were dark and heavily lidded. She had a strong jaw, but Draco couldn't tell if that was completely natural. The woman seemed to clench it as she cautiously eyed Mum.

"Andie," Mum breathed. "You came."

The woman jerked her chin in a nod. She entered the room in a slow way when Mum stepped aside for her. Her gaze softened as she looked at Draco, but hardened again when her attention shifted to Father.

"Lucius," the woman named Andie tentatively greeted him.

"Andromeda," Father said back.

Draco wondered if the coldness in his tone was clear to the woman. She ignored it, if it was. Her attention returned to Draco. The longer she studied him, the sadder she looked.

"You must be Draco," she said to him.

Draco nodded, pretending like he had any idea who she was. "It's lovely to meet you."

The sad look to her deepened. It only grew worse when the four of them took seats in the front row in the chapel. Draco took one of the funeral programmes and casually read through it while people talked about Grandfather at the podium. He didn't see anyone named Andromeda in the family that had been left behind. Draco wondered if Andromeda had also seen this. She looked like she wanted to toss, and her hands trembled. They had turned white from how tightly she clenched her programme.

Finally, after the sit-down part of the funeral ended, Draco could catch his father alone.

"Father," he whispered, "who is that woman?"

"She's your mother's sister," Father replied. "Disowned ages ago by your grandparents."

Draco tried to see her again among all the people in the garden, leaning this way and that. "What did she do?"

"She married a Muggle-born."

The way Father said that, Andromeda's Muggle-born husband was something more improper to speak the name of at a gathering like this. Draco shifted awkwardly, avoiding his father's piercing gaze at a mild thought toward Sophie.

"Why is she here if Grandfather disowned her?" Draco asked.

"Your mother invited her," Father said. "Your mother only had her father, and this has been very difficult for her when they were so close. She's feeling sentimental. To tell you the truth, I know this is going to end in heartache. Your mother wouldn't hear it, unfortunately. She wanted to give her sister a chance, but all Andromeda has ever brought her is pain. She chose a Mud—a man over her entire family."

Draco fell quiet, made nervous. People really did that? He understood more now why his father had talked to him about going with a Muggle-born when he heard about Sophie. Would that have ended in disownment? Draco felt nauseous to ever imagine his father looking at him as if he no longer was his, or no longer loved him. The thought made Draco want to go cry in his rooms.

He went to the toilet instead, to take some deep breaths, put some cool water on his face, and wash his hands. The toilets by the drawing room had both been in use, but the ones between the manor office and lobby weren't. That part of the house was quiet. When Draco stepped out of the toilet, he heard the loud, purposeful click of heels crossing the lobby for the front entrance. He saw Andromeda pass.

"Andie," came Mum's voice from toward the Atrium. "Andie, wait."

Draco headed the other way, to double back through the coat room. With a second thought, he slipped into the office anteroom instead.

"Andie!" Mum's voice grew more desperate. "Please—"

"No." Andromeda's voice had a scathing tone. "I've hit my limit, Narcissa. There is only so much insult I can handle for one day. I should have known what it meant when only I received an invitation. And the programmes? God, you couldn't even put my name on there as a surviving child?"

"I invited you after they were made," Mum said quickly. "I didn't think you would actually come—"

"Oh, even better!" Andromeda cut her off. "An afterthought. Lovely. So whether I came or not, Father was survived only by you and Bellatrix on paper. How lovely, that Father still put her above me. Who cares what she did, or where she ended up. I married Ted, so I suppose that was truly the end of the world."

"Andie." Mum's voice was thick. "It wasn't—it wasn't like that. I thought maybe—maybe now—it's only you and me—we're the last ones—"

"No, you're the last one," Andromeda shot at her, and Draco could pretty much see her finger jabbing along to emphasize the point. "I haven't been a Black for twenty years. I left that name behind, and Mother and Father happily burned the bridge for me before I could get to it myself. You made your choice too. You went along with them on it."

"I was sixteen!" The way Mum's voice went high, she almost sounded like she still was. "You walked away from me! What was I supposed to feel? What was I supposed to do?"

"You could've come with me. You had the choice."

"No I couldn't, and you know that! I'm not like you Andie, I couldn't turn on everything—"

"I know, you were Daddy's perfect little pureblood princess."

"Stop talking to me like I'm a child. I'm not a little girl anymore, and neither are you. There was nothing stopping you, nothing at all, from finding love in a way that meant you didn't have to leave me behind. I managed—"

"So if you already have a family, why are you so bothered about me?" Andromeda snapped. "You don't care about Ted or Dora. You never would, even if we managed to sort all this out. All you would ever see is the man who stole your sister, and the child that's essentially his trophy for having done so. You would have me leave them and come home. Come home to what, exactly? Your husband, who despises me? Your son, who will surely be raised to do the same?"

"You leave Draco out of this," Mum replied. "He's done nothing to you. He's eleven years old, for god's sake."

"For now. Soon he'll be like his father, spouting off about Mudbloods and blood traitors—"

Draco jumped, too surprised to even gasp, when a slap echoed through the lobby. He regretted having stuck around now, to try and know who this woman was.

"You have no right bringing my child into this discussion," Mum followed up in a dangerous tone that Draco wasn't sure he'd ever heard from her. "I never said a word about your daughter. You could at the very least return the same courtesy."

"No need." It sounded like Andromeda was fighting not to cry. "Goodbye."

Her footsteps kept on out the front doors, then faded away. Draco froze with his back against the wall, hardly daring to breathe as he waited for Mum to leave. Unless she'd silently vanished, she still stood there.

A heavy inhale, then exhale, sounded from the lobby. Mum moved toward Draco. He clenched his eyes shut, hoping he wasn't about to be caught, but Mum passed the anteroom door by. She didn't go much further. She stopped in the hallway outside the toilets.

The sobs that reached Draco were different than any he'd ever heard from Mum before. They had a broken quality to them—a hopelessness. Draco bit his bottom lip. He felt like he intruded on something very private, and that he ought not be here. He had nowhere to go, though.

Draco wondered if he could possibly slip by unnoticed, if Mum was upset enough. Tentatively, he stuck his head out the anteroom door. His heart sunk as he looked at Mum. She slumped against the wall opposite the toilets. Draco had never seen her look so defeated.

Making a snap decision, Draco emerged from the anteroom. "Mum?"

As if Draco had startled her with a curse, Mum's spine snapped straight and she started wiping at her face. "Oh—Draco—what are you doing here?"

"The toilets by the drawing room were being used," Draco told a partial truth. "Are you all right?"

Mum's inhales still hitched. "I will be. It's been a difficult day."

"Yeah."

He gave her a tight hug, tucking his head underneath her chin. Draco's throat tightened when Mum squeezed him back. She stroked his hair and pressed the occasional kiss to it. It made Draco feel better that Mum calmed down. She still sniffled, but the utter, absolute dejection he'd seen and heard seemed to have tempered itself.

"I love you," Draco said.

Mum's breath shuddered before she rested her cheek against the top of Draco's head. "I love you too, darling. More than anything. More than anyone."