"Oh, Mum, there is something troubling me," he said, perking up and starting to play the most reassuring, spoiled boy imaginable. "Mum, the Christmas gifts I gave out have used up all my allowance! I want lots and lots of gold, I want to buy sweets..."
Narcissa chuckled; the gloomy atmosphere she had painstakingly cultivated was dispelled by his cheeky request.
How could she think that Draco had grown up?
This child is clearly still a child! A child who is especially good at being affectionate and loves sweets!
"Silly boy, what is there to worry about? This is the easiest problem to solve. If you need money, just tell your mother! Here is twenty thousand Galleons, is that enough? Look at me, I did not even realise you did not have enough allowance,"
Narcissa said kindly, relieved that she had successfully solved a problem for her son. "From now on, I shall transfer fifty thousand Galleons into your Gringotts savings account every month for your allowance. Buy whatever you like..."
"Thank you, Mother," Draco said, pleased with his mother's generosity.
For a wealthy woman like Narcissa, whose spending was enormous... money was just a string of numbers to be added or subtracted at will... these Galleons were nothing more than a grain of salt slipping through her fingers.
"By the way, Draco, when you gave out the gifts, did you follow the gift-giving rules I told you about?" Narcissa asked with interest.
"Of course, the students and professors all received them accordingly," Draco said.
"That is right! You must be careful about the gifts you give to professors, since they can directly affect your grades. No matter what kind of teacher they are, they will not refuse a Christmas gift that touches their heart. In any case, we must respect our teachers."
Narcissa leisurely gave her son a long lecture on gift-giving, and then left the library satisfied.
Draco's mother, Narcissa, always doted on her only son. As long as it did not involve matters of principle, she would grant Draco's childish and unreasonable demands, sometimes even doubly so.
In this life, she was even more approachable and generous than in her previous one, especially as her son's honours... top of his class, a recipient of the Order of Merlin, and the Seeker who had never lost a Snitch... fulfilled all her dreams and vanities as a mother.
Young Draco had taken his mother's generosity for granted. He thought all children lived like that, at least having an endless allowance.
But when he gradually learned about the amount of allowance his peers received, when he discovered that five thousand Galleons could buy a small house and two thousand Galleons could be used to invest in a rather good joke shop, he had to admit that Narcissa had spoiled him too much.
His extreme material wealth had made him unable to empathise with certain things.
He had ridiculed Hagrid's smoky, unkempt wooden hut, Professor Lupin's tattered robes, and the Weasleys' choice to live at the Burrow, a place lacking in taste.
He had even wondered why their children always wore second-hand robes and bought second-hand books. Could they not live a little more decently?
When he had raised this question, his father Lucius told him, "Because they are poor."
"Why are they poor?" he asked his father. Lucius narrowed his grey eyes and said haughtily, "Because such people are inherently lowly, because they are blood traitors."
Poor = shabby = tasteless = lowly = blood traitor.
This was the cognitive equation that Draco had naively absorbed, instilled with malice by his father.
Young Draco had not yet grasped a crucial truth: a person's nobility or baseness has nothing to do with wealth or poverty.
At that time, all he had cared about was that he did not want to live a poor life, did not want to be tasteless, did not want to be inferior to others, and even less did he want to be the blood traitor his father despised.
Therefore, in his previous life, Draco Malfoy, a spoiled and arrogant boy, had treated everyone with arrogance and conceit.
He had used the values of his idolised father, mixed with his own dubious understanding, to haughtily hurt everyone he knew without realising it.
He had mocked Ron's family mercilessly, thinking them hopeless. It was not until he came into close contact with the Weasley children that he realised they were poor, but never inferior.
Fred and George have a knack for making people laugh, and being around them always brings joy. Ron, though a loudmouth and stubborn, is very loyal and willing to part with his meagre allowance to make bets for Draco.
Draco had realised it too late.
In his previous life, he had had no way of understanding all of this, of understanding the other side of the world; by the time he discovered that the world had another side and wanted to understand it, he was already an unpopular, malicious Slytherin.
He had had no choice. In his ignorance, he had been forced onto a path he never wanted to take. At that time, he had had no idea what it meant to have the Dark Mark branded on his arm.
That is not glory, that is a scar.
It is laughable that he had thought it a hero's badge, not knowing it was the mark of a monster.
Never again in this life. I shall never be so ignorant and naive again, never aid and abet evil, never watch the Malfoy family's great ship sail into the storm.
Narcissa Malfoy remained immersed in the peaceful atmosphere that Draco had painstakingly created.
She knew nothing of the unpredictable future and did not believe that any storm could touch her beloved son.
For her, the only thing she cared about was the change in her son's height.
"Draco, I am fairly certain you have grown taller again." On Christmas morning, Narcissa looked at her son with affection.
Draco smiled at his mother and tried on the new winter robe that Narcissa had made for him in front of the huge, gilded full-length mirror in the drawing room.
"It fits perfectly," he said with satisfaction. "Thank you, Mother."
"Lucius, what do you think?" Narcissa said cheerfully.
Lucius, who was reading a newspaper in an armchair nearby, glanced at his son over the top of his newspaper upon hearing this. "Barely so."
"He is clearly very handsome." Narcissa said to her awkward husband, disagreeing, "What do you mean by 'barely so'?"
Lucius did not want to upset his son, but he also could not bring himself to praise his son directly.
He always held a certain belief in his heart: boys should not be praised too readily, lest they become arrogant.
So he changed the subject. "I heard you beat Harry Potter in the last Quidditch match?"
"It was not exactly a defeat. The Dementors attacked him; I was merely fortunate," Draco said.
"Do not belittle yourself. Well done." Lucius said hastily, then felt extremely embarrassed for showing his approval of his son, and buried his face behind the newspaper again.
"Also, you must practise the Patronus Charm more, and try to make it take corporeal form." The father's calm words continued to float from behind the newspaper, but
Draco had to listen very carefully to catch the trace of worry hidden within them. "Those Dementors were far too audacious... I have already lodged a strong protest with the Ministry."
Draco nodded.
"Do not rush, Draco. You can already cast it, which means your spellcasting ability is fine. Perhaps you still need to find some joy, or perhaps you have not yet decided what form you wish it to take..."
Narcissa comforted her son, her blue eyes looking at him gently. "I hesitated for a long time before I finally settled on a robin."
Draco smiled and nodded at her, but he knew in his heart that it was not that simple.
How much joy could possibly fill the darkness in his soul?
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