September 1992
Dear Draco,
I trust you're having fun in your new home. It was my home too. It's everyone's for seven years. But I hope you won't mind coming here to visit me when Christmas rolls around.
The house is empty without you. I never realized you were so loud. Or perhaps your father and I are just quiet. That seems likely. He misses you too. He went looking for you yesterday. He was almost to your door when he remembered you weren't there in your room. Or outside. You were at Hogwarts.
It's ever so funny to see your father confused.
Thinking about how dashing you look in green,
Love,
Mum
P.S. You better remember to write me at least once a week! Don't for one second think you are beyond my reach.
The letter was lousy with folds. There was some water damage. (He'd read it in the rain.) The ink had faded, but Narcissa Malfoy's elegant handwriting remained legible. Not that it mattered, Draco could see every careful stroke with his eyes closed. He could recite it word for word. He kept it under his pillow because he couldn't bear to lose it (and they would take it. Like the took his books and shoes and wand and pride-)
He'd written her since, but the only letters he ever received (from anyone) were from his Aunt Andromeda telling him that she would pick him up from King's Cross and that he would be spending the summer (and every foreseeable holiday) with her.
Draco hated (hated, hated, hated) his aunt's house. The rooms were too small (and there wasn't enough room to breathe). What kind of house only had eight rooms in it? She didn't even have any house elves (not even one). Her and her husband (Uncle Ted) took turns cooking and cleaning (and they made him help). Draco hated chores (because Malfoys didn't cook and they didn't clean and he was a Malfoy still, he was, he was, he was, and-)
But he didn't hate his Aunt Dromeda (or her family).
His mom had told him once that she had two sisters, but she hadn't said anything more.
He understood not wanting to talk about (to remember) a sister like Bellatrix. She was a criminal rotting her life away in Azkaban. She was mean (cruel, deranged, evil).
But his Aunt Dromeda was, for lack of a more eloquent word, nice. She was warm and caring and loving (and nice). His mother was that way too, but only sometimes, Aunt Dromeda did it all the time. Her 'nice' was always on. The only thing she ever did was marry a muggle-born. But his Uncle Ted was nice too (despite being raised by muggles). It didn't seem right losing family that way. Bellatrix was still in the family and she was-Well, she was.
He loved his cousin Dora. She was everything he wanted to be when he grew up. She was training to be an Auror and she had been the best beater in the history of Hufflepuff. (At least according to her and he didn't want to doubt her.) He decided that if he ever got to be on the Ravenclaw quidditch team, he would be a beater. (He'd always fancied himself a seeker, but-) Beaters could be very mean (if they wanted to be, and he wanted-) Best of all, her name was even more awful than his.
He didn't care that she was a half-blood. He might have at first (but she was too nice, too good). The Tonks on a whole were good and fun (and free) and nice. It didn't make any sense.
He had never wondered about these things before. Before his father told him how to feel (how to see, how to act, how to think). It had been so much easier. He knew he wouldn't be confused if he could talk to his father. He would remember how to hate (people he didn't know). But his father wouldn't write him either.
His parents were probably disappointed in him. What kind Malfoy was he? (Blue, blue, blue.) But he didn't understand losing family because of green furnished dungeons (and green striped ties and snakes and former friends mocking him because he wasn't one of them). He didn't understand that. Not anymore (but sometimes he still did).
His parents were angry and he sometimes feared they'd disowned him (but someone would tell him if that were true, Aunt Dromeda, Dora, someone). If he wasn't a Malfoy, what was he? (He was just Draco and there was nothing special about that.)
Sometimes he wondered why his father wasn't ever in the news anymore (why he wasn't allowed home, why his mum wouldn't write), but he never did that for long. (If he thought about it-)
Thinking about things never did anything. (So why would he bother?)
He looked out the window and sighed. The countryside was probably as beautiful as it had been the year before, he thought ruefully, but somehow dread made everything less pretty, more dull.
(And he wonders what his mum would think of him in blue.)
But wondering never did anything either.
Everything was the same (and it was different).
He was (the same and he was different.)
He was Draco (Malfoy).
He was (at least) Draco.
(Hopefully that was enough.)
He carefully refolded the letter and slipped it into an inside pocket in his robes. Love, Mum. Burning in his brain (his eyes, his heart).
Maybe she would send him another.
(Maybe, maybe, maybe.)
And maybe she would (not).