Draco POV

"FUCK!" I screamed at the top of my lungs across the black lake, throwing the first rock I could find into the deep abyss.

My feet had carried me to the edge of the water, my body unsure of where to go. I'd said it. I'd said the words I'd barely even thought to myself, spreading them down at her feet in a moment of rage and I hated myself for speaking them, especially that word. Love. Love was the most terrible four letter word in the English language. It accompanied all the pain in my life and everyone I had ever loved was broken. I had the sudden desire to return to the place I had first known that wretched word. I wanted to burn it down, to rip up the floors and knock down the walls. My probation didn't stop me from returning to the manor for visits. I waved my wand, calling my broom, and when it arrived, I flew far enough off the grounds that I could apparate.

The world cracked around me and I landed the broom outside of the manor, tossing the once beloved item to the dirt with little care. I stomped into the foyer and screamed out for my mother. There was no answer from her. Posy, my mother's favorite house elf, popped into view at my feet.

"Master Malfoy! The lady of the house is in the gardens, Master Malfoy. She will be so pleased to see you."

No, she wouldn't. I began my assault in my old bedroom. It was just as I had left it, opulently furnished in Slytherin green and reeking of childhood memories. My mother used to rock me in the chair in the corner when I was very small, she used to read to me from the books that lined the shelf, she bought me the quidditch set that sat in the trunk in the corner. I pulled my wand out and cast spell after spell to rip the drapes and shred the duvet, then the bed itself. The old rocking chair came apart in splinters. The small trinket toys that lined my shelves blew apart along with the books as my brow beaded with sweat and when the room was nothing more than pieces, the need to destroy had not abated. Maybe I needed to move on to the places I hated. I gravitated to my father's study, hearing my mother's shouts in the distance along with the click of her heels.

"Draco! What are you doing? Draco!"

The study was the place I had first learned the power of words and sneers and anger. I let that anger unleash now in the form of fire, remembering every awful thing Lucius Malfoy had ever spoken to me.

Don't touch that! Don't speak! You insolent, worthless boy!

Quit Sniveling! Stop crying, you're a Malfoy!

How is some mudblood bitch better than you, Draco?

Can't even best the Potter boy at quidditch! I might as well burn all your damn brooms.

You will take the mark! You will take the mark or you will never see the Nott boy again. Your mother and I will disown you and you will have nothing! Do you hear me?

Father's desk lit up like a torch and I spread it along the ancient collection of dark books that lined the walls, uncaring of the screams from Posy.

"Stop it! Stop it!" She cried in that way that house elves did, child like wails of tears. "You're upsetting, Mistress! Stop it!"

I stole a glance at my mother. Narcissa Malfoy was indeed upset, but it wasn't the room that she was looking at. She didn't care about the havoc I was creating. No, she was looking at me, eyes full of that dreaded four letter word. I ignored the look, ignored her. Leaving the fire to burn in its space, contained by magic, I found the room that I wanted to destroy the most. It was a room that I had not seen since the night I had scarred Granger. I stepped inside the drawing room, ready to continue my assault, but another wand beat me to the punch.

The floors and walls pulsed and then crumbled under her magic. I watched as my mother joined in my rage. Our wands worked together to destroy that damn fireplace, the chair, the rugs, and the tapestries. Untamed magic filled the room, and I watched as the place I had hurt Granger was obliterated into nothing. None of it was left intact. We didn't stop at the drawing room either. We continued our destruction in tandem- the ballroom, my parent's room, the sitting room, the morning room. We stopped outside of the library when Mother placed a hand on my heaving shoulders. My face was wet with a mixture of sweat and tears.

"It's enough," she said, between heavy breaths.

"It's not," I said, though the anger had shifted to exhaustion.

"It is," she declared, pulling me into her so that my head could fall on her shoulder. "My boy, my sweet boy."

She held me there, rubbing my back as I sobbed until I finally managed to compose myself and pull away. To her credit, she didn't speak of why I had come, of my tears or feelings. She didn't speak of her own feelings either. Narcissa was a smart woman, one who knew how my mind worked because it was so much like hers.

"Posy, can you please work with the other house elves to dispose of the rubble and send an owl to Mrs. Greengrass? I believe she has the contact for an interior designer. Oh, and can you ask Mopit to make some tea and bring it to the conservatory along with some sandwiches?"

"Ye-, yes, mistress," Posy replied, tittering off with sniffles. It was only then that I noticed her clothes. The house elf was wearing clothes, a simple black dress that looked like something my mother would typically wear. When had mother given her clothes?

"Get washed up and I'll meet you outside," she said, leaving me to disappear into her destroyed room. Thankfully, we'd left the en suite bathrooms intact.

I stepped my way through the pile of rubble in my room and took a shower that was much too hot. My skin was pink when I got out and I eyed the scar on my chest a little too long in the mirror before dressing in a suit that one of the house elves must have left on a very plain bed that sat in my now empty room.

When I walked into the conservatory my mother was a picture perfect witch again, dressed elegantly in a deep green dress. She was sipping from a teacup and the sun lit the space in a warm glow. I sat across from her in the dainty white metal chair, recalling the lessons she had given me in etiquette when I was five or so. I'd been nervous to sit across from her in such a fancy setting. All that nervousness had culminated in me dropping a teacup similar to the one she was holding now. I'd cried and immediately gotten worried about my tears.

"Please don't tell Father about the cup or that I cried," I said in a panic.

"We can fix it, Darling. Father will never even know," she said, waving a wand to repair the cup as she smiled at me.

Funny. Back then I was so afraid my father would find out that I had broken something and sitting here, I only wished he was there to see what I had done to his precious family home.

After eating a sandwich, we sat sipping our tea in silence.

"Now that your father is gone, you need to visit more," said Narcissa. "I miss you."

"I'm sorry, Mother," I said, and I was. Maybe she was a broken witch I could actually fix. I needed to start making real effort with her, more effort than basic letters full of pretty lies. She gave a nod, looking away from me to one of the house elves who was pruning the flowers in a pair of overalls and a sun hat. More clothes. It was so strange. It reminded me of Granger, of the organization she had started at Hogwarts.- S.P.E.W. I remembered her knitting those hideous clothes for the house elves there and I smiled at the thought of her seeing these elves, being in this place. It was absurd, as if she'd ever return to the place where I had maimed her, to the manor from which the Dark Lord had ruled.

"Things have changed," she said, seeming to read my thoughts. Not that she ever would, despite her affinity for occlumency. "They've changed for the better, and your arrival today was just the push I needed to make some physical changes to the manor. I will redecorate and you will visit more. You'll bring Theo with you. I miss him too."

It pained me that it hadn't occurred to me that she would miss him. Of course she would. He'd basically lived at our house for years, the guest room was decorated just for him.

I reached for my mother's hand on the table and squeezed it.

"He misses you too. We'll visit."

She smiled then, squeezing my hand back before falling into chatter about her redesign plans.

By the time I apparated from the Manor back to the Hogwarts entrance, I felt somehow lighter though that word still haunted me. Love made things difficult, but maybe it was worth it for the soft feeling it brought me, for the smiles and the comfort even in fits of insanity. Breaking things with someone was far better than breaking them alone. Besides, once they were broken, you could always rebuild.