Life after Hogwarts - A Hermione & Draco x Dramione Story

Chapter Six

"Mother? Mother are you here?"

Draco flooed into his mother's cottage, located in the countryside of Winchester, and only heard the echo of his voice. He hadn't made the trip out to see his mother since Hermione came back to London. Draco wasn't avoiding his mother, per say, but the relationship he and his mother had was a four-year work in progress. He often wondered if they could be just a normal mother - son duo, but with most everything having to do with a Malfoy, normal wasn't the norm.

He peered out the window of her sitting room, and saw her tending to her garden in the back of her house in her white linen dress robes, an wicker hat with a large brim perched atop her graying hair tied in place with a black satin bow beneath her chin. She began wearing her hair down after his father passed two years ago, only pinning it up with perfection when she had an event to go to - which was rare considering Narcissa never went anywhere formal without her husband, and now her son.

His attire was hardly appropriate for wandering in the gardens, as he flooed over from his office straight to her house. Just as Kingsley said, September 1 would be the day he'd fly solo, and fly he did. He had five cases reassigned to him, so he spent the day holed up in his new office getting familiar with the clients. He wore his charcoal gray suit with a deep plum colored tie Hermione picked out for him during her shopping been a few weeks back. Never did Draco ever think to own anything of the purple realm, but as he allowed her to tie the tie for him this morning, she ran her fingers over the slick fabric upon finishing and gushed. "Draco, it looks gorgeous on you!"

He'd wear a magenta tie with neon green polka dots if that were to be her reaction.

Draco walked out the side door of the cottage, stepping on each square stone that led him to the garden. "Hello, Mother."

Narcissa spun around, holding a basket in her hand filled with flowers. "Well hello, son," she said with a pleasant enough smile. "I thought you'd forgotten about me."

"Not entirely possible," Draco said, hands in his pockets. He rocked back and forth on his feet. "Lovely flowers."

She smiled. "Just trying to enjoy as many flowers as I can before fall comes. I can hardly believe it's September already."

"Of course, Mother."

"Care to help me?" Narcissa asked.

"Certainly, Mother." Not exactly wild about walking around in the garden with his dress shoes, Draco opened the small white gate and walked towards her. He never tried a scourgify on imported Italian leather shoes before, but as soon as he stepped into a glob of mud near some over-watered plants, he realized that he'd be doing just that. He held back his trademark grimace and took a pair of sheers from his mother as they walked together towards a patch of black-eyed susans. "Sorry I've been away," he said, watching his mother out of the corner of his eye as she clipped the stems so he could replicate. "Work has been rather hectic."

"I used to hear your father say that all the time," Narcissa said, clipping a row of flowers in a tempo that mirrored her unspoken agitation, most likely to his lack of visiting. At least that's what Draco assumed.

Draco snipped a few flowers, laying them in her basket she held hooked on her arm. "Father used to work late so he could help conspire how to ruin lives of others while inadvertently ruining ours. I work all the time helping people who need it. Two entirely different things, if you ask me."

"You shouldn't speak ill of a man who is no longer around to defend himself," Narcissa said coolly.

"Even if he was around, Mother, he has no defense." He forcefully handed the sheers back to her. "I never understand it."