To Live and Die in LA - A Dramione fanfiction (complete)

Chapter 12

We finally joined up with Potter after he arrested those blumbering goons. I asked him, nearly begged him, to be there when he arrested Tracey. Granger convinced her friend to let her go also so that she could take care of Ian, shelter him from the ugliness that will lay just beyond the horizon.

We apparated to the backyard of the Pasadena house, nothing looked different from the last time we were there. Ian was running around the backyard, kicking a ball, and the moment he saw us he plowed into Granger with the biggest hug and smile the little tike could muster.

She played with him for a while while Potter got what he needed from Tracey. After all was said, Granger and I had our moment with her. We both needed answers, and only she could give them to us.

"But why Tracey? Why would you do this to Blaise?" She asked the question that had been on my mind all day and night, ever since we found out the truth.

"I missed it. I missed England. I missed being magical all the time. I miss my friends, my family. I miss the money, the power, the prestige of being a Zabini. Ian is the Zabini heir, he is due it all and here he grows up in this hovel in bloody Pasadena!" Her British accent comes out the angrier she gets. "He deserves better, he is a Zabini."

"But what about him?" I question the roundheel. "Where does this leave him?"

"He is going to be with the most powerful and influential women of our world." Her tone is hateful and sarcastic at the same time. There seems to be an underlying disgust for Granger in her. "And his grandmother who carries the Zabini fortune. He will know what his name means, his history, his legacy. If he has to deal with the shit associated with the Serpents, he at least deserves to be a real Zabini." She paused, "He never cared you know. About the perks of being a Zabini. Blaise loved Ian. He loved you," she said looking directly at me. "He worshipped her because to him she was all things good in the world." She sighed again, must be resigning herself to her fate. "Me, he just cared for me. He knew what I wanted and he walked away from it all. She," she shakes her thumb at Granger mockingly, "she was light and happiness and all that bullocks. You were the perfect partner for Blaise, grounding him where he was flighty and hopeful. Ian was his angel, his redemption, his heir. What did that leave for me? I ended up being his whore that wore his ring and carried his last name. Giving him a home and a son for the pittance that the department paid him and that's all. Why did I do it? Because deep down I resented him for giving me this life."

Granger kept her bound magically and handed her wand over to me. Ian cried in the background; I think he understood his little world was changing again.

We agreed that Granger would take the boy home, take him to England. Probably raise him the way Tracey wanted to live, as a Zabini. Granger would introduce the little boy to his grandmother and like she knew, the boy would be spoiled beyond measure. Ian would get it all and Granger would never renig on her responsibility as his godmother, never taking anything for herself and giving all she had to him.

And that would leave me alone. No family. No partner. Nothing tying me here anymore. Except the city - Los Angeles is my home. It is my responsibility to maintain the safety of the citizens - protect and serve and all that nonsense.

We both, with a simple sad look, knew it was always going to come down to this. It was always going to be me left behind and her moving forward. It was always going to be romance and heartbreak and love and loss wrapped up and sealed with a bow.

It was a couple of days later before everything was settled. Tracey was being put in wizarding jail here in the States for the contract on her husband. Crabbe and Goyle were being deported to the British Ministry of Magic courtesy of Harry Potter, Granger's best friend that my mother saved. After a brief yet painfully awkward farewell which included a job offer back in Britain if I cared for it, Potter was off with a number of his associates to take the hitmen to the wizarding prison for their numerous crimes.

At the intercontinental apparition office she holds the little boy's hand as her heels click away from me, taunting me as she leaves, slowly but determinedly steady. Her hand rests on the door knob and without turning around she asks, "Are you sure? Sure you won't come back with me? London is great this time of year."

"No kitten, I can't. I need to stay here. I need to work the muggle side of crime and make sure that the worlds don't cross like this again. My life, my job is here."

"I can get you a job at the Ministry doing the same thing. Harry's my best friend and he's in charge of the aurors-"

"No baby," I am standing right behind her now. I feel the tremor in her hand as it continues to rest on the knob. "Go back to your life there. Watch over Ian. Do all the things Tracey wanted to do. Have him be the brightest wizard of the age."

"I can do all that with you."

"No babe, you can't. You live your life on the light side, let me spread some light in the shadows here. Maybe one day our lives will cross again."

She turned around, I didn't realize that my arms had caged her in, and I notice that her eyes are full of unshed tears. This is the family I could have, if I only gave into this dame. "Just be safe Draco Malfoy. Don't let the Serpents sink their teeth into you."

"Never."

She leaned up and kissed my cheek once, something so innocent that almost made me give up my resolve right then and there, turned around and went through the door. No goodbye. Nothing more. She just walked out of my life without another word.