Broken Open

Chapter Forty-Seven - The Silence Freed

~Thirteen Months Later~

"Zhey are trickling onto my side of zee vall, Molly-who eez zis boy?" Cybille crossed her arms over her chest, studying the collage on our shared room's wall.

I sighed, "I told you. He's just special to me."

She squinted at my latest newspaper clipping, "How special can he be ven heez vazzer eez in Azkaban?"

"Draco is not his father," I said quietly.

Cybille shrugged, flipping her silky auburn hair over her shoulder and smiling at me, "I'm off to dinner. Coming?"

I returned her smile with less energy, "In a little while. Go on ahead."

When she left our dorm, I looked back at the hundreds of pictures I'd adorned my wall with. Most of them were my own sketches of Draco, but there were several moving pictures from the Daily Prophet that I'd saved.

Draco had become quite the celebrity in London as of late. Lucius had been sentenced to life in Azkaban, and the leeches wanted to know how his son was dealing with it.

But seeing as I was only one set to receive the Daily Prophet, my fellow Beauxbatons girls knew nothing about him.

I decided it was better that way.

Sighing again, I trailed my fingers down one of the pictures before leaving the dorm and heading to dinner.

I'd spent the rest of my sixth year at Beauxbatons, and then all of my seventh. There were two weeks left of term before I was free to take on the world.

Monsieur Devaux, the Beauxbatons potions master, had been recruited to be my new Snape. He administered my blood transfusions every morning before classes, and the system worked quite well.

I'd yet to have an accident. In fact, most of the Beauxbatons girls thought I was normal. I'd even made a few friends.

But everyone could tell I was miserable.

They thought I suffered from severe depression, which was probably true. But this depression had a cause.

I tried to make up for it by conjuring Draco secretly every night in the bathroom, just staring at the magnificent Patronus. It was the only thing that could comfort me.

My parents kept contact.

For several months after everything happened, they were wary of me, but things seemed to have slipped back into the norm.

Life went on...a constant monotone.

"Molly! Sit here!" Cosette, the blonde beauty, called from their table. The Beauxbatons dining room was more like a ballroom, and there were no houses in the school, so therefore no house tables.

Instead, hundreds of circular tables filled the room, which was lined with glass windows.

The only things at all similar to Hogwarts were the big, gold doors that made up the entrance. In fact, they were almost identical.

I went to sit with Cosette and Cybille, tucking my blue dress under me and smiling at them.

It was a beautiful night. Gentle rain fell outside, and we were so high up that the stars seemed to shine brighter.

The girls started to have a conversation in French, and I lost my bearings. I'd been learning French since I arrived, but I was still quite rusty. So instead I helped myself to a crepe and some lobster bisque.

I sipped my Merlot tentatively. Beauxbatons allowed spirits, but only one glass at dinner. I was thankful for it.

It helped fill the emptiness, if only temporarily.