Returned- Drarry COMPLETE

Chapter 20

—Draco POV—

The day before the move came, it was official: we're going to stay in 12, Grimmauld Place. We have already gone more than once in the past week- Harry, Scorpius, and I. I didn't want to take Scorpius, but Maria was no longer an option... We cleaned the whole house. We repaired broken things, we took down Walburga Black's portrait, with intense struggle thanks to her screaming at the top of her lungs, as well as it having previously been hung with a permanent sticking charm, which I managed to brew a potion to counter it with. We freed Kreacher, letting him leave the house once and for all, which he did not like. It took hours of negotiation before he agreed to leave in exchange for a job at Hogwarts. We got rid of the awfully musty wallpaper, including the black family tree, which I had noticed, had Scorpius magically added to it. I pretended to ignore the fact that both of our faces were scorched off, as well as Andromeda's, Tonks, Teddy's, and Sirius, faces.

I had torn down that specific bit of the wallpaper with my bare hands as opposed to using magic. It felt good to remove myself from the wall. I am my own person, and if I, and the person I love most, were blasted off of the family tree, then I don't want any part of it. I don't even want to think of the possibility that it was my mother who did it, the only Black that knows things recent enough to be driven to do so.

I want to think that when my father told me marrying Astoria was grounds enough to exclude me from the family, that my mothers look of disagreement was exactly what I thought: I'd like to think that she didn't agree with him when he said I'm no longer theirs. Of course, I'll never know, because I simply can't go back there. Too much has happened within those walls.

We really re-did Grimmauld Place: cleaning from top to bottom, changing the gas lamps for electric lighting, replacing the old, worn carpet, and dusting off the piano, to which Harry said 'you should learn a tune or two". We finished re-painting the walls to not look a depressed dirty and dusty green, but rather a warm red. We got rid of the overhead chandelier, too- Harry said it was 'too much'.

I dealt with pesky doxies that bit my hands when I first discovered them, and boggarts were hiding in many places around the house. There were also many valuable potions ingredients that had been left abandoned in drawers and cupboards. Speaking of which, Harry couldn't help clean the cupboard on the third floor. But, he was a great help in getting rid of the spiders residing in all sorts of hiding spots. The whole project took us five days with magic at our disposal.

I remember while cleaning, I heard a horrible cry from Scorpius two stories from the ground floor, and I raced over. Laying before him was my dead body. I was shocked still as I saw him eyes-red, crying and wailing, frozen and trembling in grief at my lifeless replica. When I realized it was a boggart, I got rid of it. I took nearly two hours to calm him down.

"Hey, Scor, it's okay, hey come here." I picked him up, allowing him to wrap his legs around my waist as I held him tightly. He hugged me as if I were a lifeline, burying his face into my shoulder where he continued to cry, letting loud gasps escape himself. I squeezed my eyes shut to avoid crying myself.

"Don't worry. I'm right here, dada's right here, Scor."

"Are you crying, Draco?"

"N-no, father."

"I thought so."

I squeezed Scorpius, making sure he understood that I'm not going anywhere. I heard him sniffle, audibly trying to catch his breath as his little hands gripped the back of my shirt more tightly.

"Don't worry. Everyone is fine, everything is okay. I'm fine, you're fine." I gave him a small kiss on the forehead before resuming my original hugging position, swaying him from side to side like I used to when he was an infant.

"I'm not leaving you. What you saw wasn't real. I'm here, I'm with you. You're not alone."

He slept in the bed every night with Harry and I ever since, hugging me tightly. It was frightening to see his worst fear be something so... horrible... and real. It wasn't a monster, or even a doll, or losing a game. He's scared to lose me, and I wonder if it's because he lost his mother before he could even learn her name, and then proceeded to lose Maria eight years later, who, dare I say it, was a mother figure to him. That's why he loved her so much, I figured, after one night that I'd stayed up just thinking. She really did treat him like her own, and now, she doesn't even know who he is.

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The last two days before we moved, we packed my house up. Throwing away what we don't need, and transferring it to Grimmauld Place right then and there. I remember when Harry discovered my basement.

"You didn't tell me about this."

"I didn't think it necessary." I told him. I watched as he strolled through my collection- passing shadow boxes with items, shelves, cabinets, and desks.

"It's quite impressive." He said, then he saw my old potions books, and my Alchemy manuscripts. "You really have a knack for learning." Then he saw my shelves of potions and ingredients, and a few cauldrons. "I see you never really stopped making potions." I could see that through all of it, he was tense. I wasn't sure if it was my collection, my keeping it a secret, or something else.

Our first night in Grimmauld place, we didn't sleep, none of us. I allowed Scorpius to stay up with Harry and I. We sat in the drawing room on the first floor, drinking tea, and listening to the piano, which I enchanted to play soft music for us. Scorpius did eventually fall asleep on top of me, but Harry and I stayed up until the warm yellow stream of morning sunlight came through the grand windows.

The second night, we all went to sleep in the bedroom on the second floor, all of us together. Things were starting to settle, though We never mentioned what had brought us back in the first place, and Harry and I both knew that it was only a matter of time before everyone found out. It was the middle of the night, when I was woken from my much desired slumber in the quite comfortable and clean bed, because Harry's phone was ringing. Who would call at this hour?

"Hello?" I heard Harry mumble sleepily, clearly also having been woken. I watched as his eyes went wide, shooting up out of the bed, feet landing noisily on why white, crisp, tile floor as he ran out without another word.