Darkness Within||Draco Malfoy Fanfiction

Chapter 40

A/N: Chapter 40...it's big and important...we finally find the closure of Ciara Le Fay...and Draco and Roxy's secret gets let out during a steamy session in a club...

Chapter 40: Reminisce 

I love you for all that you are, all that you have been, and all that you will be

Her eyes stayed on those last engraved words, remembering the exact line scrawled across that last photograph in Ciara's bedroom. 

Just then, the presence of her own love came up beside her, his arm slipping around her waist. 

The two of them stood there silently before Roxy finally spoke.

"It's her, Draco. My mother. Can you imagine my father standing right here, all those years ago, watching as her body was buried in this tomb? Did he feel guilt at what he'd done? Did he reminisce all those times they shared together?" 

His voice was quiet as he replied, "I'm sorry, Roxy. But no matter what happened, I think they both loved you very much. And I think your mother must've been a wonderful, strong, beautiful cherished lady. Like you." He swallowed. "The difference is, I'd never treat you like that. I'd never be the cause of any more of your pain or even death, the way your father was your mother's."

"I just...I just wish I could've known her. Standing here...it makes her death, her life, so much more real. Oh Draco." She turned to bury her head into his shoulder. His arms hugged her to him tightly.

Roxy wondered what it would've been like to have known her mother, and even her aunt and her grandparents. If she was a normal witch with a normal family. Her mother teaching her all the ways of a witch, going to visit her aunt during the holidays and spending time with her grandparents Alcina and Gwydion. Going on trips with her father and her mother. Maybe she could've even had a sibling. 

"Roxy?"

She quickly spun away from Draco just as their friends emerged. Their faces changed upon seeing the tomb the two were standing at.

"Oh Roxy," said Daphne softly. The three girls hugged her. 

"So this is her," said Blaise finally. "Do you -do you think your father put those last words there?"

"Of course, you dimwit. Who else would it have been?" Theo rolled his eyes. He turned to Roxy. "I'm sorry, Roxy."

She forced a small smile back.

"Your mother was so beautiful," said Jade, looking at the photos of Ciara Le Fay. Indeed, she was. Dark, luscious hair framing an elegant face, high cheekbones, full lips, brilliant eyes, holding her posture so regally. 

"She looks like you, Roxy, doesn't she?" mused Cassidy. 

"Yeah, you two share your similarities," agreed Theo. 

Roxy gazed at the photos of her mother. Baby Ciara, held by her parents. Then her as a toddler, then a young child of nine, then her with her parents and grandparents, then her first day of Hogwarts, Ciara with her friends...the next was Ciara with a bigger group of friends, including a certain dark-haired, tall, strapping youth that was Tom Riddle. The seventh picture was just her and Tom Riddle at what looked to be sixteen, gazing at each other with loving smiles. The eighth a picture of the two again, this time sitting on the grass against the backdrop of Hogwarts castle, Ciara in Tom's arms as the two grinned in their graduation day. A couple more, until her gaze landed on the last one. This one was different.

It was a formal portrait. Ciara, slightly older, sat in an elegant, high-backed chair, dressed in a luxurious gown with her hair done up. Her high cheekbones and steely eyes accentuated a colder and stiffer look in her face. In her arms was a baby girl. Stood beside the chair, one hand resting on Ciara's shoulder, was Tom Riddle, taller and older, clad in black dress robes. There was a haughty look on his face, but his eyes were cold and powerful. His posture, too, was rather stiff and forced. The whole portrait was cold. There was a rift in it, an unsettling, forced feeling.