The Girl Who Lived

Understanding

TW: mentions of sexual assault & child abuse.

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He knew that once the night ended and he won his galleons from Elena, they would go their separate ways and pretend this didn't happen- but he didn't want it to go back to the ways things had been.

He didn't want the night to end, possibly ever. It was stupid and selfish of him to think it in the quietest parts of his mind but there was no cause in denying it.

He didn't want the night to end and to leave Elena again.

But what other option was there? There could never and would never be more between them.

There wasn't allowed to be. She- she had Fred Weasley and he had his inability to feel for anyone. It was simple- or should've been.

He shook away his thoughts at last.

"My father killed our housekeeper in front of me without hesitating and it was my fault." Draco said, blowing air out through his teeth. Lock of hair rippled at the breath.

Elena's brows furrowed and her face twisted into puzzlement- not fear or anger and disgust.

Never disgust for him, not anymore.

"One day, when I was ten, I was home alone with the housekeeper. Of course we had a house-elf but my mother had sent Dobby to her mother's home across England to tend to her because my grandmother was ill. Instead of doing anything with his bare hands because God forbid-" He snorted, rubbing his weary face gently.

He was so tired and he could tell Elena was starting to feel the exhaustion hit her too.

"My father was at work while I was in the gardens, admiring the new greenhouse my mother had ordered to be made for her, but I remembered I needed to borrow a tie from my father for a dinner party that night we would have to attend. Pansy's tenth birthday dinner, actually. I went up to my parent's room, even though I knew I wasn't allowed in without the company of one of them. I went in anyway, seeing as the housekeeper was downstairs, cleaning the kitchen. I was young and infinitely curious so I decided to look around without the scolding voice of my father demanding I leave the room. While I went through his clothes and looked at the photographs my mother had on the walls in frames, I found this,"

Draco slid off the large ring from his index finger carefully, catching a glance at it before handing it to Elena.

She took it carefully, cradling it in her hands as if it were a precious memento.

The ring was a heavy thing, thick and long. As she ran her fingers over the smooth crest carved into the hunk of stone turned into a ring, she realized what it was.

The crowned dragons on the sides of the perfectly scriptured "M" for Malfoy aligned themselves with a protruding arrow coming from the top of the crest that had two small snakes entwined with one another. It was his family ring- his family crest.

Her own family indeed had a crest- but they had rarely used it. It wasn't a thing Thomas Clairmont had liked to flaunt.

So instead, his parents- her grandparents had the gold band on her finger made with only their surname engraved.

If the significance was anything to Malfoy as her own family ring was to her, she knew he was trusting her enough to hand her it and even hold it.

"He had forgotten it at home that day and I knew how he never left without it or even let me touch it so I decided to wear it, play with it and take it to study and draw the crest perfectly. I pocketed the ring and snuck back to my room before the housekeeper caught me. For the rest of the afternoon, I spent my time hunched over the ring and a piece of paper where I had begun replicating the crest. I had a right to know the family crest and own up to the name, didn't I? I'm a god-forsaken Malfoy and my inheritance is the only good thing about it.