Chapter Three
Draco gazed down at his young sister, her soft blonde hair spread over the down pillow. He admired her for being able to sleep after such an eventful day.
He had been so worried for her in the last few months, having received no word from either her or his mother, who both wrote to him in secret on a regular basis. He wiped a tear off his face now that he knew why. His mother was dead. He truly blamed himself for not being able to do anything, he knew this would happen sooner or later, especially with his father being both Voldemort's right hand man and the new Minister for Magic.
The Order had crumbled during the battle of Hogwarts and the Ministry along with it. With no one else available and Lucius being one of the only remaining high ranking ministry officials, he had been quickly raised to the position of Minister by those loyal to Voldemort. None in the community had opposed the appointment, they were either desperate for guidance of any kind or too scared to oppose the man who would have them killed if they resisted.
In the days since his father was appointed, civilian disappearances had skyrocketed. Any suspicious activity was dealt with immediately and harshly. Draco was both happy and ashamed to be hiding out in America all that time. After openly betraying Voldemort by saving the Boy Who Lived, there had been no way he could stay in the UK.
He regretted now, contacting his mother. He only wanted to let her know that he was safe, and to make sure she and Antigone were also. The correspondence had continued, she informed him of everything that was happening in wizarding England. His selfishness in keeping up the letters was what had led to her death, and it weighed heavily on Draco's conscience.
One of the first gifts Draco had sent Antigone after he had left was the green plush dragon she held so close to her. Whenever she held it, her feelings would broadcast through it and into the matching pendant he wore around his neck. When he had felt her terror transmitted through the pendant he had left America immediately with an ominous feeling that something terrible had happened.
International apparation was a lengthy process and the whole time he had been panicking. The only thing that had kept him calm enough to accurately apparate was the fact that he was still getting something out of the pendant, even if it was terror, she was still alive. The closer he got, the more frantic he became. Anti-apparition wards prevented anyone unauthorized to apparate on to the property and he was forced to run towards his former home from the gardens on the far side of the lot.
His heart had skipped a beat when he first smelled the smoke and saw the intense flames rising from the manor. Walls were beginning to collapse and he knew that if Antigone was still inside, there would be no way of getting her out.
Out of sheer desperation and fear he had begun screaming her name. Movement had caught the corner of his eye and he called out her name even louder when he saw the firelight glinting off her blonde hair. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes and called for him, arms outstretched. He clung to her, never wanting to let go. She could have died, it was a miracle that she hadn't.
Of anyone he might have seen that day, Harry Potter was certainly the last person he'd expected to run into. After the last time they had seen each other, how they had parted ways, Draco had been certain he would never see the dark haired boy again.
His mind drifted away to the months after the final battle but he would not let himself dwell on them and shook his head to clear them away.
He thought of his mother again, Antigone resembled her so much it almost pained him to look at her. He was all she had now. Under no circumstances would she ever be seeing their father ever again, especially not after he had caused the death of their mother.
Thinking of Lucius boiled Draco's blood, how a man could abandon his small daughter in a burning building was just not something his mind could comprehend. He clutched the bed sheets and ground his teeth together at what he would do if he ever saw his father again. It wouldn't be pretty, that much he could guarantee.
No matter how hard he tried, his thoughts kept drifting back to Harry and just how broken and empty he was. He had not expected the war to have had such an impact on someone who had been so seemingly joyful and friendly during all their years at Hogwarts.
Bright, emerald green eyes shone from behind the boy wizard's trademark glasses in Draco's memory. He was certain that carefree expression would never return to his face.
When Draco had made the decision, rather, had finally listened to what his subconscious had always told him, and saved Harry, he had expected things to change. He had wanted them to come to a kind of truce, to put past differences behind them. Draco wanted Harry to know that he had never agreed with anything his father or the other Death Eaters had been a part of.
Expectations seldom live up to their hype, and Draco ended up with something far different and more life altering than he had ever expected. He knew that Harry must have felt the same, and Draco's presence now, only served to make Harry's life just a little more complicated, threw a little more on his plate. No normal person would be expected to bear the burdens that Harry Potter chose to bear.
Those familiar emerald eyes-
Draco was startled out of his daydream when Antigone squirmed and whimpered in her sleep. "No..." she whispered. "Don't leave me alone, daddy, not with the scary man. Help, Aunty Bella! The fire!" Antigone's discomfort grew, it was obvious that she was having nightmares about the night's events.
"Wake up, Tig." Draco whispered in her ear, pulling her up onto his lap and holding her close. "I'm here, baby, don't worry. You're safe. It's just a dream."
Antigone's eyes fluttered open, their icy blue depths, more like her mother's than Lucius' or Draco's, were filled with tears. "Draco?"
"I'm here, sweetheart." He kissed the top of her head.
"Draco." She managed to speak between sobs. "Daddy left me in the fire. Doesn't he love me anymore?" The look on her face as she looked up at Draco absolutely broke his heart. How on earth was he going to explain this to her?
"Oh, Tig." He took a breath and settled himself, his teeth gritting again as he was forced to think of Lucius. "I know you might not understand this, but daddy," it killed Draco to refer to Lucius in such an affectionate term, "daddy, was not a very nice man. He wasn't ever very nice to me, either. That's why I wasn't allowed to stay at home with you and mommy anymore. His friends didn't like me very much either and they were more important to him than I was. You're better off without him. I'm here to take care of you now."
"Mommy wasn't very important to him either, he was always mean to her. She hid with me in the garden all the time. We always played there." Antigone's face had brightened at the mention of her mother and the quality time they had spent together. "I miss mommy a lot. Aunty Bella was s'posed to take care of me but she was really mean too, I hate her!"
"I miss her too, Tig. But we have to keep going, right? We wouldn't want mommy to be sad, watching us be sad, now would we?"
"Mommy's watching us?"
"Of course she is, sweetheart. She watches us and makes sure we're safe and happy, so we have to do everything to make that happen."
"Will we get to see her again?"
Draco smiled at his little sister's question. He envied children their innocence and wonder of the world. He had lost both many years before. "Not for a very long time. One day, when you've lived a long and happy life, it will be time to go see her, and she'll be waiting."
Antigone smiled and buried her face in Draco's chest. "I love you Draco."
"Love you more." He grinned and kissed her head again. "Now, let's try and go to sleep. We've got a bit of a long day tomorrow. Depending how I feel, I'm going to take us back to America. I'll have to see how much my magic has recovered, it's a very long way to travel and it takes a lot of energy."
"America?" Antigone sounded excited.
Draco nodded. "But first, we have to sleep." He slid down the bed so he was laying down, his long legs extending over the edge of the small single mattress.
"G'night, Draco."
"Sweet dreams, Antigone."
She shut her eyes and was asleep almost instantly. Despite his exhaustion, it took Draco much longer to fall asleep, and it certainly wasn't a restful slumber. All night he was plagued with dreams of the months after the final battle, memories dredged up with his re-introduction with the Boy Who Lived.
Draco was wide awake by the time the sun came up early the next morning. His eyes were scratchy as sandpaper and red as the Gryffindor banners he loathed so much in his teen years. Antigone was still deep asleep. He certainly did not have the energy to apparate internationally today.
He carefully extracted her from his arms and pulled the comforter over her, bundling her in tight. He stood from the cramped bed and stretched, running his fingers through his normally silky, now tangled, platinum blond hair.
Shutting the door to the spare room quietly, he wandered towards the kitchen for a glass of water. He was hard pressed to find a clean glass but managed to find one decent enough to fill with water from the old, slightly rusty tap. He turned, surprised to see Harry sitting at the small table in front of him. He hadn't noticed him on the way in.
Swallowing the mouthful of water he had held in his mouth, Draco waited for Harry to say something. He didn't. In fact, he didn't even seem aware that there was someone else in the kitchen with him. His eyes were empty and glazed.
"You're up early, Potter." Draco spoke, sticking with stating the obvious as a conversation starter. After his previous day, Draco was sure that Harry would have slept the day through, especially considering the large volumes of alcohol, potions and pills he had consumed when they had first entered the house. Draco looked him over carefully. He looked like shit. He wore a simple white t-shirt and black sweatpants. The side of the shirt was stained with blood, and it looked fresh, Harry was still bleeding from the night before.
Harry's gaze rose and met Draco's. Seeing his scrutiny, Harry stood from the table, dragging the glass he had clenched in his hand along the top of the table and shakily brought it to his lips. "Yeah, well, I don't sleep much anymore." He finished off the amber liquid in the glass. "Your sister okay?" He asked quickly, not allowing Draco to respond to his last statement.
Draco frowned. He could tell Harry was trying to change the subject, like he had revealed something he hadn't intended and was trying to detract from it. "Yeah, physically, she's fine." He ran his hand through his hair again. "Look, about last night, I want to thank you for saving her. I know you're beating yourself up for letting You Know Who get away, but I really appreciate it."
Harry snorted, walked away and didn't say anything. After a moment of pacing he turned towards Draco again. "Don't expect to stay here too much longer. The only reason you're here is because you were too weak to apparate last night. Today you're perfectly fine, so you can leave anytime." Harry remarked scathingly.
"I wouldn't dare go anywhere in the UK, and I'm still in no condition to apparate to America, especially not side-along. If we could only stay another day-"
"That's not my problem. You're not welcome here." He spat. "I don't allow relatives of Death Eaters in my house."
Harry's mood had shifted so dramatically and quickly that Draco wasn't quite sure how to process it. "Excuse me?" Draco asked, in shock. "How dare you! After what I did for you-"
"What you did for me?! Ha! What you did for me isn't even close to making up for all the things you and your father and the rest of Voldemort's Eaters did."
"You're out of line! You know I never wanted-"
Harry strode forward intimidatingly and grabbed Draco's right arm, pushing up the sleeve, exposing the dark mark which stood out so drastically on the pale skin of his forearm. "You wear the mark of my enemy, why would I allow you to stay?"
"So I'm still the enemy? After all these years, is that really all I am to you? I gave up everything, my family, my status, my fortune, because I believed you could change the world. You know, over the last four years, there have been times when I truly believed you were dead, just like everyone was saying, and it saddened me, not for myself, but for the world. You were the only one who had the courage to stand up for what we all believed in, and that was gone forever, or so I thought. After seeing you now, I wish you actually had died, at least then the world would have been allowed to fall. But to hold on and suffer like this, for the selfish reasons of an extremely depressed and vengeful boy, it's just cruel. You're far more evil than you claim I am." Draco spat back at him.
"You're skating on thin ice here, Malfoy..." Harry nearly growled. "You're not the only one who's given up everything-"
"Why did you? You still have friends out there, supporters who would do anything to see you alive again. Why have you kept everyone in the dark? Think of how everyone-"
"You make it sound like it's supposed to be easy! The Golden Trio reunites, we all waltz through a field of daisies and the war is won. Look at me! It's not that simple."
"You don't have to do this alone. This is not your-"
"Not my what? Not my responsibility? You know for a fucking fact that that's not true! It's only me! Me, a fucking drunk, damaged and bitter fuck up who has nothing left but vengeance." Harry's voice trailed off and Draco sensed a tired hopelessness in his voice.
Draco reached forwards and placed his hand lightly on Harry's shoulder. "Just listen. You don't have-"
Harry's head sprung up, his tired, sad expression replaced by rage. He shoved Draco back hard and Draco stumbled a few steps before regaining his balance. The little hairs on the back of Draco's neck stood on end. Harry was breathing deep, trying to contain his anger. Draco could feel the level of magic in the room rising, the air felt statically charged, tense. "Get the fuck out of here!" Harry bellowed. The air around him began to crackle.
Draco was petrified in fright. He'd seen many terrifying things in his life, far too many for his liking, but seeing Harry truly furious topped the list. His mind scrambled with all the different ways he would be able to get out of this house with both he and Antigone completely unscathed. He backed slowly out of the room, only turning his back when Harry was out of sight.
He rushed into the spare bedroom where Antigone still lay, blissfully unaware of the tumultuous situation brewing all around her. He scooped her up, wrapping her in the small comforter. "We're leaving, Tig." He hurried out of the room as fast as he could, not even looking for Harry as he bustled out the front door. He didn't notice the absence of the plush green dragon, laying on the empty bed.
He practically ran down the street, Antigone squirming in his arms, her tired mind hadn't fully comprehended what was happening yet. Once around the corner, Harry's house out of sight, he slowed to catch his breath. Where was he going to go now?