Chapter 17: I Know That Look

A/N- prompt used: [Dialogue] "I don't know how people pretend to be something they're not; it takes so much effort."
Word Count- 1037

"Oh, hold on. I have something for you."

Draco had barely walked through the door when his Aunt Andromeda suddenly sprinted up the stairs, spry for a woman of her age. When his aunt returned, she handed him a little velvet box. "This was my mother's and it rightly belongs to Narcissa's children, not mine."

Draco stared at the box in his hands, flummoxed by its existence. "I— well—

"Now don't wait up," Andromeda interrupted. "Your mother and I won't be back until morning. There's a casserole in the cooler and Teddy's already asleep for the night, so you most likely won't have to worry about him too much. Thank you so much for watching him though. He usually stays with his Godfather, but Harry and Ginny are visiting the States for some auror convention. You're a good boy."

Draco could barely keep up with his aunt as she whirled around her house, slipping on a pair of heels and fixing her hair in the foyer mirror. He barely understood a word of what she was saying, still bewildered by the strange box in his hands.

"Alright, how do I look?"

Draco blinked, taking in the sight of his aunt. She looked a lot a like her sister, Bellatrix. He didn't think Andromeda would like to hear that comparison, though.

"Uh, great. You look great."

Andromeda beamed and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. "Love you. Be good."

And with that, his aunt was gone, off to meet his mother at some function the old biddies club they'd joined a few years back was throwing.

Once he was alone in his aunt's house, Draco sank heavily onto the sofa and held the box up to the light. Slowly, ever so slowly, he opened the box to view the ring inside.

"Wow."

He quickly shut the cube with a loud snap and placed it on the coffee table in front of him. He eyed it with a wariness, as if it might suddenly grow teeth and threaten to bite him.

"Oh, I know that look."

Draco glanced up from the ring box to meet the gaze of a young pink-haired girl in her portrait. Nymphadora Tonks, the cousin he'd never met, smirked down at him.

"What look?"

Tonks grinned knowingly. "That look that says, 'No one will ever love me.'"

Draco scowled at his cousin. "What do you know?

"Far too often, I saw that look in my husband's eyes. Even after we were married, I'd sometimes catch that twisted sadness." Her voice became a little melancholic as she reminisced.

Draco thought about his old Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in his shabby clothes and the faded white scars that marked his face. Tonks had married that man, had begged him to be with her, in fact. Why did Remus Lupin think himself so unloveable when Tonks had practically showered him with devotion?

Why did Draco have that same look now?

"He thought he was a monster," Tonks replied to his unasked questions, as if she had been reading his thoughts. She rolled her lime green eyes in their frame. "Such a silly man."

Draco looked down at his left arm where the scars of the dark mark still marred his pale skin. "Maybe we are monsters."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" Draco startled at Tonks's exclamation. She glared at him from her place upon the wall and Draco couldn't tear his gaze away from hers. "Monster is such a strong word. What is it about you men calling yourself such a horribly untrue name? Is it like a martyrdom thing? I really don't get it."

Draco blinked, his mind reeling over Tonks's questions. Why did he do that? "I—" Draco had no idea how he was going to finish that sentence.

"Look, take it from a Metamorphmagus," Tonks said, her hair turning purple in the frame as she motioned to herself with a wave of her hand. "Even I don't know how people pretend to be something they're not; it takes so much effort!"

Draco laughed despite his glum mood. His cousin's grin widened, resembling a cheshire cat. He really wished in that moment that he'd actually gotten to know her, that he was speaking to the real Tonks and not a snapshot of her personality in a silver frame.

Tonks smirked again. "Now, I'm not saying to forget your past mistakes. You'll have to live with those, dear cousin."

Draco sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

"But those mistakes aren't all you are," Tonk continued. "You have loads more to offer, to yourself… and others."

Draco glanced back down at the little velvet box on the coffee table. He thought of Blaise and Daphne, of their wedding next month. He thought of Theo starting a relationship with Luna Lovegood of all people. He thought of Teddy Lupin asleep in the next room, the product of a love he would only ever know through stories.

He thought of Astoria Greengrass.

"Thank you." The words were said in an awed kind of whisper for he was ever so grateful for this advice from a stranger— from this advice from family.

"Oh, I know that look."

"What look?" Draco asked again, his eyes still on that box.

"The look of someone about to do something a little insane."

Draco smiled devilishly as he picked up the ring box and slipped it into the pocket of his robes. "Maybe."

"Wow. I am such a good influence."

Draco laughed again and glanced up to meet his cousin's eyes. "Yeah. You're the best."

Her ring kept slipping off her finger. She'd lost so much weight in the past couple of months.

Draco fashioned a silver chain and looped the ring onto it. He raised Astoria to a sitting position and fastened the clasp around her neck so that the ring could fall beside her pearl pendant. Ever so gently he laid her back down, her blue eyes meeting his as he leaned over her in the candlelit room. She looked beautiful, even now.

"I know that look," she mumbled, half-asleep.

Draco swallowed. "What look?"

She smiled, her eyelids drooping. She fell asleep before he got his answer.