The Shattered Dragon

Chapter 13: Cracks

He didn't talk at all on the way to his suite and Hermione walked dutifully behind him with her books in her arms, watching as he rubbed the back of his neck, his shoulders high and tense. She hadn't heard all of what he'd said while standing at her door, but she had heard that nothing had changed, that while he admitted to needing her, to wanting her, he couldn't give her anything more; and still she told herself that she didn't want anything more. Even without the words she could hear the brokenness in his voice, the fear he had of never being whole again, the deep-rooted hate he had for himself. It hurt to hear, so she was willing to serve his purpose, to give him what he needed, whether he asked for it or not.

Draco opened the black doors and walked straight to the bar, kicking off his shoes along the way and pouring a drink before heading back to his desk. In truth, she'd been so quiet he'd nearly forgotten that she'd actually agreed to follow him there.

"Sit," he said quietly, motioning towards the leather chair. "I have some owls to write before the guests go home." He paused and shook his head clear. "Sorry. If you want a drink, help yourself," he added, waving his hand. "That teapot is bottomless, there's an Assan blend in it now."

Hosting duties completed, he sat behind his desk, but she could see that his gaze was still trained on the teapot. She'd seen similar enchanted items at Pearl and Dunkel, an apothecary and teashop that once did a brisk business in Hogsmeade. Pulling a delicate white cup from the shelf behind the bar, she ran her fingers over the tiny red phoenixes painted on the pot, their wings tipped with gold leaf.

"Did you ever try their Dark Forest Blend?" she asked, looking up at his glazed over eyes, standing in front of the teapot to break the trance. "It was a little too smoky for my taste, but Mistress Pearl always said it was a 'more masculine leaf', whatever that's supposed to mean."

"She did know how to blend tea, but anything else in her brain was incredibly suspect," he said quietly. "She told me once that Ceylon is bad for pureblood fertility." Finally he locked on her gaze. Finally she could see that he was actually there with her. "So I told her to give me three pounds of it," he said, allowing himself the tiniest hint of a smile.

Hermione laughed, flopping back down in the leather chair beside the fire.

"Wizard medicine is pretty archaic to start with," she said. "But her advice always did raise an eyebrow...probably because it actually worked. She had an incredible poppy tea for menstrual cramps."

His smile faded and he looked down at his papers, shuffling them around, looking for a quill.

"She was arrested. Imprisoned for being a mudblood sympathizer. She was suspected of smuggling families to France," he said.

"What? How could she possibly...she was at least eighty years old when we started school! And nearly blind besides!"

He nodded and looked up, his face drained of color, lined with exhaustion.

"Once the smuggling ring was broken up and they knew she had no involvement they were going to release her as a house slave to the Greengrass family." He sighed and leaned back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. Hermione caught his eyes flicking over to the bar...to the comfort of his whiskey. "The dungeons were damp, cold. It was February. She caught Black Lung. She died frightened, alone, in pain, coughing up blood on the floor of a filthy, windowless cell."

"Draco, how did you..."

"Where do you think she was held, love? Who do you think was sent down every day to make sure she was breathing, scourgifying the piss out of her cell after she was crucioed? You were there. You saw what became of the Manor. It was a prison, a torture chamber. The house I was born in became a fucking morgue. No, it was never a cozy little cottage like the Burrow, I know that, but it was my home. It was the one place I felt safe." He ran his fingertips over the soft edges of the black quill, looking down at an ink splatter on his desk. "It was the only place I felt safe."