Draco Malfoy Gets a Life Coach

Potter Approves!

I'd walked her home at the end of the date, and the goodnight kiss we'd shared had been celestial. I couldn't think of another way to describe it.

Her flat was in Muggle London, but that didn't stop me from going for a long walk after watching her disappear behind her door, giving a coy smile and a wave as it shut.

I wandered for a while, remarking on how relaxing it was to be out in a place where no eyes fell upon me. I wasn't a person of interest there, and I enjoyed it immensely. I'd only had a small amount of exposure in the streets of Wizarding London, but the little bit I'd had had been quite enough.

It was one thing that Granger, Potter, and others had forgiven my actions, but I got the sense that the Wizarding world at large was more of a mixed bag.

My desire not to endure the stares, or rather, the enjoyment of their absence, however, was just a data point. I had turned a corner, and I found that from this new perspective, I didn't care as much about the opinions of the masses.

I knew who I was.

Or at least, I knew who I wasn't, and I was on the way to knowing who I was.

And that, it seemed, was enough to restore in me a sense of confidence I hadn't felt before. It was different than arrogance, and it felt drastically more powerful... a fact which seemed to hold some irony.

When I got home, Mother wasn't waiting to interrogate me.

For a change, I went to see her on her side of the Manor. She'd redecorated rather drastically, replacing a lot of the muted greens, blacks, and grays with jewel tones and shimmer.

I wondered idly if she ever expected Father to come back... and how she felt about that.

We'd never talked about it.

I knocked softly on the door to her parlor, which was slightly ajar, and then entered. She looked up from a book she was reading and a grin spread across her face.

"Well, hello, darling, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Evening, Mother," I said with a light chuckle. Our relationship had shifted in the last few days and this was just one more example of how we'd slipped rather naturally into a new dynamic.

"I thought you might want to hear about my date."

She looked as though she could have cried, but choked it back and nodded, the smile now encompassing her entire being.

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The following day, Granger arrived at the Manor in the late morning. Mother had made herself scarce (by choice, not by my demand) and so we'd been unencumbered in our journey to my quarters.

I retrieved the scrolls containing my coaching projects and then led her to my potions lab.

Sure, I could have brought them to the lab before she'd arrived, but I supposed I wanted to experimentally have her enter my bedroom, if only for a moment, just to see what it felt like.

I couldn't help my smirk, when I noticed her cheeks turning the lovely shade of pink.

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