Mine

[49]

A week had passed since the Battle of Hogwarts. Every single day of the last week I had gone to Malfoy Manor, and every single day it had been hauntingly empty. Every single day I wrote to Draco, and every single day I received no response.

I was feeling lost, empty, confused. Alone.

Things were very tense at home. Grant barely left his room and I heard him sobbing at night, crying out in his sleep as he had dreamed of Penelope's dead body in his arms. I often joined him in bed, awakening him from his nightmares and soothing him back to sleep. My father was putting in long hours at work as the Aurors were on a mission to locate and bring in all of the Death eaters. My mother had been granted time off from work. She told us that it was so that she could recoup after what had happened, but I knew she was desperate to keep a close eye on me and Grant.

* * *

It had now been a month since the Battle of Hogwarts. Hermione and Blaise often came to visit me, sitting with me and telling me about things I didn't care about to distract my mind. I was beginning to feel like a shell of myself. I could barely eat or sleep. When I did sleep, I was often tortured by nightmares of that night. They varied drastically from being memories of the actual events of that night to Harry having actually died that night and Voldemort having taken over to Draco having refused to join his parents among the Death eaters and Voldemort having killed him on the spot.

Today, Blaise was sitting with me in the garden. My eyes were red and swollen as I looked at my lap. "He's gone." I whispered, "He left me."

"You don't know that." Blaise murmured.

"Really?" I snapped at him, my eyes shooting daggers at him. I immediately changed my demeanor, grimacing an apologetic look at Blaise. "I just mean that...well, how else would you describe it?"

"He could be..." Blaise trailed off, sighing.

"If you were going to say dead, he isn't." I responded. "I've thought about that option, but if any member of the Malfoy family had been killed, it would have been reported."

"I wasn't going to say dead, Gemma." Blaise said grimly.

"Well, what were you going to say?" I whispered in response.

"You don't know that he left you." Blaise sighed, "For all you know his family could be in hiding."

"And they probably are!" I exclaimed, fresh tears involuntarily piercing my eyes. "But it all makes sense now, don't you see? He knew. He was so cold and different from the Draco we knew, you said so yourself following Easter. He never told me why he had acted so terribly towards me. It makes sense now. He knew his family was planning on fleeing. He knew he was going to leave me behind, and he didn't even give me a warning!"

"You don't really believe that, do you?" Blaise asked me.

"I do. Because it's the truth." I murmured, glancing hesitantly up at Blaise. It was the only reasonable explanation for his actions following Easter break, especially with his disappearance following the war. He had left me.

* * *

It had been three months since the Battle of Hogwarts and since Draco had left me.

"Are you sure you don't want to return with me?" Hermione asked me.

"And what, be alone in Slytherin? No, I can't return, Hermione." I responded, avoiding her watchful gaze as we sat in my family garden. I couldn't even envision returning to Hogwarts. I knew how much education and schooling meant to her, but I couldn't understand how she was able to imagine herself returning back there after everything that had happened.