Chapter 3:The Manor

Once Narcissa collected herself, she showed me the way to Draco's room. Part of em hesitated at the door. Going in to Draco Malfoy's bedroom felt like an insight into a mind that years ago I would've described as twisted.

I had to focus solely on the task at hand or my mind dredged up Bellatrix Lestrange. She would haunt me until the end of my days, I was sure.

Draco Malfoy's room was remarkably clean for any male's or at least it was clean compared to Harry's, and especially Ronald's. But that was as far as I would let that train of thought go.

"We haven't touched anything in the room," Narcissa said, managing to speak over his emotions. "Let us know if you need anything more."

I nodded at the overwrought mother, letting her slip away with dignity. My own emotions were running amok as Narcissa left with a quieter version of the Malfoy flare.

Once my thoughts and emotions were a little more clear, I turned to Malfoy's room in earnest, or Draco's room, rather. It felt wrong to call him Malfoy in his family home.

Draco's room was unusually tidy, but that could easily be attributed to the Malfoy House Elves rather than Draco's personal habits. His room looked more like something out of a magazine than an actual dwelling. The decor was largely black and white with hints of green. The decorations were classy and they definitely had a Victorian influence.

A bookcase caught my eye. It was full of leather-bound tomes, but the spines were surprisingly well-worn. The book that caught my eye seemed to be the most read of the books, and the title was all too familiar: Hogwarts, A History.

I found myself tracing the spine, then removing the book, greeting the words like old friends. I knew the introduction by heart and I even found myself mouthing the words as I read them. Once past the introduction, however, I found that the book was actually a canvas for Draco Malfoy's thoughts. All white space at the margins and even the space between the lines in some cases were filled with Draco's precise scrawl. Some of it pertained to underlined portions of the text, while others were like mini diary entries- "Goyle called me a ferret so I hexed him," or "Father heard about my Potions score, I don't want to go home."

As I flipped through the pages I saw Draco grow up in a manner of speaking. The handwriting grew slightly more refined, although there would be the occasional interjection of older Draco, as if pointing out things he hadn't noticed when he was younger.

One the page about the ceiling of the dining room, Draco's green scrawl stopped me. The passage was underlined, and Draco had written:

Mudblood Granger recited this word for word. How does she do that?

However, in contrast to the green ink he usually used, Malfoy had crossed the word "Mudblood" out with black ink, and in clearly more mature writing it said:

I will never use that word again.

Curious, I flipped through the pages, occasionally spotting angry black splotches where various derogatory terms and insults had been inked out of existence.

On the very last page, in the white space beneath the Afterword, a single line was carefully written in black ink:

I am not my father.

I closed the book, equally touched and unnerved at my new insights into Draco Malfoy. I considered myself a fairly open-minded person, and I had even forgiven Draco, his parents, and most Death Eaters in general, which had been a monumentally difficult thing for me. But never once did I ponder his side of the story. With all of his threats to tell his father, I assumed that Lucius doted on Draco.

Taking a moment more, I took an inventory of Draco's books, a collection that was like a small sample of my own collection at my apartment. He had some of the finest spellbooks and grimoires, as well as a good portion of wizard literature. But nothing helpful rested on the shelves.

I started to slide Hogwarts: A History back onto the shelf, but something behind it stopped it. Pulling the book a Muggle travel guide of all things. It was a travel guide to one of the odder sounding American states, Idaho. I had only the briefest knowledge of Idaho. It was a fairly insignificant state, and it had something to do with potatoes.

It felt significant, significant enough that I quietly slipped the compact travel guide into my roves. One thing other departments of the Ministry could learn from the Aurors was the surplus of pockets in the robes.

The room was otherwise practically spotless, aside from a couple of scorch marks on the floor that had already been recorded. They were assumed to be curse marks from the night of the disappearance.

Getting on my hands and knees, I searched under the bed, but there was nothing, not even a solitary dust bunny. The night stand looked equally unpromising, but I caught a flash of silver. Praying that Malfoy Manor was free of spiders, I stood and gently levitated the nightstand.

The silver I had caught a flash of was Draco's family ring, a heavy wrought-iron piece sporting a vicious snake. I had never seen the ring off of Draco's finger.

After picking up the ring, I was about to put the nightstand back when I noticed the faintest shimmering of silver on the wall. When I circled the nightstand to investigate, I found that there was a piece of the nightstand cleverly carved out for a bottle containing a silver memory.

The bottle popped out with ease, and for reasons I couldn't explain I put it in the same pocket as the guidebook, but the ring I kept clutched in my hand. I searched everything I could possibly think of, but I guess my luck had been used up.

Lucius and Narcissa were hovering not too far outside the room. "Did you find anything?" Narcissa asked desperately, speaking before Lucius could.

I opened my hand, and both parents sucked in a breath to see Draco's ring. Hesitantly I said, "As this is possibly Draco's most prized possession, I think I may be able to use an ancient tracking spell that should break through any cloaking spells on Draco. But that's only if you wish it."

"Of course," Narcissa said without hesitation.

Lucius was flaring his nostrils. "I knew there was something that those Ministry buffoons missed."

"I don't know how well I'll be able to keep you updated," I said frankly. "The threat against Draco's life is still very real, but I will tell you what I can.

Narcissa tearfully led me to the door, thanking me fervently. As I stepped out I heard Lucius mutter, "What a day we live in when an impertinent young mudblood does a better job than Ministry-trained purebloods."

I stiffened, but before I could react Narcissa hissed, "Miss Granger is a lovely young witch who has accomplished more than any pureblood witch or wizard of any age. She is also the only one who has volunteered to help our son, probably because Draco used to spew insults just like you."

My legs kept moving, and I simply pretended not to have heard any of it.


A/N: Thanks for reading so far, everyone. This is my first fanfic, I mainly wanted to get some of my writing out there and hopefully improve it. Let me know what you think!