Of Doves and Dragons

Chapter Seventeen: Custom-made Baggage

"You say you're broken, beaten, used, and mistreated. Tired, shattered, bruised, and battered. The only thing I'm really sure of is, I'm unsure of most everything."

-The Maine, I Only Wanna Talk to You

Draco had come back from an awkward breakfast with Blaise to find Ember gone.

He vaguely wondered where she could have gone to, but didn't dwell on it as he sank into the arm chair and tossed his feet on top of the coffee table. The open letter in his fingers froze his hand as possibilities ran amuck in his head.

His mother wanted them home for Christmas. His father was going to be home and the Death Eaters had just vacated the manor for at least a week. Draco has assumed that they would be staying at Hogwarts over the holidays. With everything going on it seemed the safest option, not to mention he wasn't in the most cheerful of moods.

He ran his hand through his hair idly as he groaned at the unwanted predicament. Staying here meant he had more time to focus on the cabinets, but with less student activity it would be easier to get caught. Going home meant that the Dark Lord could show up at any moment and interrogate him, push Ember around like his little play thing, and add just another traumatic experience to the already piling mountain. He looked down at the mark on his arm. He supposed that Voldemort could still manage to summon him, them, over the break, but it seemed less likely due to the guarding of the castle.

Or perhaps his mother wanted them home to avoid a scuffle all together, she had always been a peace maker with an eerily adept intuition.

He was so deep in possibilities that he didn't even hear Ember enter the room until she placed a hand on his arm. "What is that?" She asked cautiously, eyeing the letter in his hands.

"Mother wrote. She wants us home for Christmas..."

Ember let out a little, "Oh," and sat down on the top of the coffee table next to his feet.

He continued to comb a hand through his loose hair and arched a brow, "Oh?" He questioned. He hadn't expected her to react so dejectedly.

"When are you leaving?" She asked, deciding to pick at his shoe laces rather than meet his eyes.

His eyes puzzled further. After everything they'd been through did she think he would just leave her behind? He spent so much time around her that it was as if she had become an attached limb. Being away from her for longer than the majority of the day just wouldn't do, not at all. "Em, don't you mean when are we leaving?"

He expected her eyes to brighten but they only stayed dull. "I don't expect you to want me to come with you. We're together all the time, and I understand that you would want to spend some time alone with your family."

"Em," He implored, nudging her hip with his foot, "Em. You are family." Her eyes flitted up to his with a strange look of hope lit in them. "You're a Malfoy, and with that comes its own custom-made, entirely revolting, baggage. Only seems fair that you should be there for the good times, however few there might be."

She smiled at him, just a faint dusting of pink coloring her cheeks.

He sighed and rested his elbows on the arm rests, fiddling with the letter. "I'm not sure we should go though, what do you think?"

Her eyes puzzled, "That's your decision."

"Em. I just asked for your opinion, didn't I? This will affect both of us. If we go, there is a good chance we'll have another... encounter."

"Is it really all that impossible that we couldn't be summoned from here?"

Draco smiled; they thought the same way. He shrugged, resting his jaw in his hand, "We, well really I, could but we could be summoned at any time for the rest of our lives."