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Silence.
A long silence.
A suffocating silence.
From the moment Draco Malfoy had climbed into the family's McLaren F1 — which had been fitted with an Undetectable Extension Charm — he had been wrapped in his parents' silence. Even after they arrived at Malfoy Manor, the atmosphere clung to them, trailing them all the way to the dinner table.
Draco had imagined many possible versions of this reunion. Fierce arguments. Extreme ultimatums. Arrogant posturing.
He had not imagined silence.
It left him feeling as though he had a fishbone lodged in his throat and could neither swallow it down nor force it back up.
He suspected that in this silent confrontation, the unspoken rule was: whoever speaks first loses.
But he no longer wanted to play that game.
This silence was neither dignified nor useful. Between family members, it was perhaps not the wisest strategy to open with tactics from the outset.
He glanced covertly at his parents, their faces set like stone.
And it occurred to him — naively, perhaps — that he might try to break this particular chill with something approaching Hermione Granger's characteristic directness.
After the last bite of dessert was swallowed and the house-elves had swept the plates away in favour of tea, the Malfoy family's customary dinner-table conversation arrived as precisely as the second hand of the bronze-and-silver Gothic clock on the sideboard.
Draco closed his eyes for a moment, imagined himself as a sliver of ice, and forced himself to smile pleasantly at his parents, who sat before him like a pair of beautifully carved, deeply unfriendly sculptures.
"Mum — the new car is very nice."
"Hmm," Narcissa said.
He tried again. How was your trip to the United States?
"Tedious," Narcissa said, with the air of someone who has been to every interesting place in the world and found them all disappointing.
Tedious? After weeks of travel, apparently taken with great enthusiasm, and she was calling it tedious? Draco's brow twitched slightly at the chill behind her words.
He decided to press on regardless.
"Anything new happening?"
"You mean the 'Draco Malfoy and a Muggle girl' scandal that has been circulating through every pureblood household in the country?" Lucius raised his cold grey eyes and looked sternly at his son. "That may be old news to others. But four months have passed, and we have yet to receive a single word of explanation. To us, it is still entirely fresh."
So. Here we are.
Draco had always known this conversation was unavoidable.
From his father's clipped, aggrieved tone, it was clear he was deeply displeased that Draco had not informed them of the relationship in advance.
But what good would advance notice have done? Their attitude would have been exactly the same then as it was now.
"There isn't really anything to explain," Draco said, glancing at his father in a tone of mild indifference — as though making a routine announcement. "We're together. That's all."
This drew a sharp intake of breath from Narcissa.
She was still quietly reeling from what she had witnessed at the station — still seeing her son's face, so open and bright, turned toward that Muggle girl. And now she had to look at him here, still smiling, but with a guardedness in his eyes that he never showed when he had looked at that girl. The joy he'd shown on the platform was not here.
"This is absurd, Xiaolong. Do you understand what you are saying? You're dating a Muggle girl —" She needed to hear him confirm it, even though she already knew: "You like her?"
"I love her," Draco said, with complete composure.
He found, somewhat to his own surprise, that he was entirely comfortable saying this to his parents — even though she herself had not yet said as much to him.
His parents, unfortunately, received these three words with the expressions of people who have just been stung by a Billywig.
What a pity. The girl who might have worn a lovely smile upon hearing those words had not, sadly, been present to hear them. He found himself regretting not having spoken aloud at the car window — why had he only dared to mouth the words?
"Love —" Narcissa said, through slightly gritted teeth, fighting to maintain her elegant composure. "Xiaolong, have you lost your mind?"
Had his feelings for this girl truly reached this point? She felt a wave of despair.
This was a thousand times worse than she had feared.
"Young love is not something to make pronouncements about," Lucius said, dismissively.
He made a visible effort to appear unruffled — to admonish his son calmly and remind his wife not to lose her composure.
"How old are you — fifteen!" he said, with the measured authority of someone who had made up his mind not to shout. "We were young once. We understand these foolish, impulsive states. Draco, we have been generous enough. We gave you three or four months —"
A grace period. Draco stared at his father and understood suddenly why they had let it go this long without taking action.
They had been waiting for him to come to his senses.
They had shown absolutely no intention of accepting what was in front of them.
"That grave-sounding word you used is nothing but youthful folly — a temporary surge of feeling," Lucius said, his voice growing harder. "The passion fades. The head clears. This childish game should be brought to an end."
"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed," Draco said, a quiet anger beginning to stir beneath his calm. "I am entirely serious."
What did "playing house" and "a temporary surge of feeling" even mean, when applied to what they had built together? That was rather insulting.
Lucius let out a cold laugh.
"Serious? That is naive." He struggled to contain himself, maintaining the dignity of a father who knew how to keep control. "Draco, do you remember your surname? Do you remember the family motto?" He gestured at the table. "Read it — it's on the teapot in front of you."
Draco looked at the elegant silver-striped teapot, the Malfoy family crest engraved on its surface in the medieval style, and read aloud:
"Sanctimonia vincet semper."
(Latin: Purity will always conquer.)
"Explain it," Lucius said. His voice was like the howling north wind in winter.
"Purity will always conquer," Draco said.
"Tell me — what does 'purity' mean?" Lucius hissed.
"Pure. Unblemished. Pureblood," Draco said, emphasising each word.
"Yes. Pureblood." A look of cold disappointment crossed Lucius's face. "Do you still remember that you are a pureblood wizard?"
"Yes."
"And does that mean nothing to you?" Lucius asked, contempt curling at the edge of every word.
"No."
"Very good. Then write to that Muggle girl immediately and end it. You will still be our good son." Lucius's voice was slow and deep, like a cello with only the lowest string intact.
"No."
"You have nerve —" Lucius's eyes narrowed. "Say that again."
"I will not end things with her," Draco said, without flinching.
A barely suppressed fury welled in Lucius's face.
The long-maintained mask of patience had cracked against his son's immovability.
Narcissa looked anxiously between her husband and her son — both on the edge of something she didn't want to see — and decided to intervene.
"Xiaolong — to be honest, we are genuinely worried about you. You are only fifteen. Young and still naive in many ways." She softened her voice, gentle and deliberate. "You have to trust your mother — we are doing this for your own good."
She attempted a smile — a smile that did not quite conceal the worry beneath it.
"That girl is not right for you. Better to end it now, before your feelings become any deeper, before you both end up heartbroken. That is better for everyone." She said it quietly.
Draco looked at her.
"Mum, you know I love you very much," he said gently. "If you truly care about me — if you truly love me — then trust me. Respect me."
He looked at his mother's face — usually serene, always beautiful, and now cracked open with worry, like a shattered angel — and he felt guilty.
His mother had always doted on him, and he had no desire to hurt her. Since his rebirth, he had worked hard to meet her expectations, to ease her concerns, to make her proud.
But there was one thing he could not do as she asked.
Narcissa was silenced.
Xiaolong had never directly refused her. Not like this.
He had always been an extraordinarily obedient child. Over the years he had grown more exceptional and more dazzling, which had always filled Narcissa with pride — quiet pride, the kind one showed off with studied nonchalance at salons when the other ladies complained about their own unruly, disappointing children and asked, "What have you done to raise such a child?" And she would answer, with a small, understated smile: "Nothing — family tradition."
She had not been to those salons in three or four months.
She was afraid to see those people. Afraid they would ask her that very question again.
What would she answer now?
Could she still say "Nothing — family tradition"?
The words no longer sounded like quiet boasting. They sounded like self-mockery.
Why?
Why would her proud, capable, remarkable son repeatedly overturn his own future, disrupt the smooth running of the family, and shatter their carefully built life — because of a Muggle girl?
And most incomprehensibly of all — why had her once-accommodating son become so utterly immovable, turning aside her gentlest pleading as though it were nothing?
Narcissa felt as though an entire vial of Heartbreak Syrup had been emptied into her chest.
"That Hermione Granger — what on earth did she do to win over my son?" Her blue eyes darted over Draco, bitterness shading her voice. "Did that Muggle girl slip a Love Potion into his drink?"
Poor mother, Draco thought.
"Merlin," Draco thought privately, watching the changes crossing his mother's face. "She really doesn't have a good impression of her."
The instinctive, unthinking look of disgust that crossed her face at the mere mention of Hermione's name made her look rather like the leader of Krum's most fanatical fan club.
Although Rita Skeeter had had fewer opportunities to write damaging articles in this version of events, his mother had formed a stubborn preconception all on her own.
Draco showed nothing outward, but inwardly he sighed.
"She used no tricks," he said, keeping his voice sincere. "I pursued her. The choice was mine."
"Pursue her?" Narcissa could not believe it. "What could possibly be special enough about her?"
She knew how particular Xiaolong was, how difficult to please. How had an ordinary girl managed to catch his eye so completely?
In that instant, Narcissa realised with a start that she did not seem to know very much about her son anymore.
"What do you —" She could not bring herself to say the terrible word.
She paused, looked at him intently, and rephrased. "What is it that you like about her?"
What did Draco like about Hermione?
The question genuinely stumped him.
Imagine trying to reduce "liking" to something that could be run through an Arithmancy formula — categorised, calculated, neatly resolved. Or like an unknown potion, to which one could apply Scarpin's Revelaspell and see every ingredient laid bare.
If "liking" could be analysed that easily, the answer would come quickly.
But "liking" was not like that.
Whenever he thought of the word, fragmented images moved through his mind — like a summer breeze rustling through the high, dense canopy of an oak — each tender leaf whispering in its own turn.
Perhaps it was the undying curiosity in her eyes. Perhaps the stubborn press of her lips as she worked through a particularly difficult charm. Perhaps a strand or two of hair drifting across his neck in the wind, light enough to tickle his heart.
He loved everything about her. Her anger and her joy. Her courage, her pride, her honesty, her vitality.
To list every quietly beautiful thing about her would take three days and three nights, at least.
As he considered, a faint, distant smile crept across Draco's face — and Narcissa, who had been watching him the entire time, felt a spike of intense irritation.
"Answer me," she said sharply.
His lips moved for a moment.
In the end, he said only three words.
"She understands me."
"Understands you?" Narcissa's voice struck suddenly — pain first, and then anger. "And don't we understand you? Don't we understand our own son? Did you ever give us the chance? You never told us anything!"
"Mum, that isn't what I meant." Draco attempted a smile and said to her, "Please. I have worked very hard to be the son that you and Father could be proud of. But I am growing up. Can you not give me a little trust and freedom? Just this once — can you respect my choice?"
"For Merlin's sake, you are still a child!" Narcissa's expression was full of displeasure.
She shook her head. "Xiaolong, the two of you have no future together. I can tell you with certainty that your father and I will never approve of her. What you are doing is a waste of your youth and a sacrifice of your future."
"Not merely his future — he is dragging the honour of the entire Malfoy family through the mud!" Lucius burst out, past holding himself back. "Cissy, do not try to reason with him. To have feelings for a filthy, lowly Mudblood — he has been bewitched. He has willingly walked into depravity!"
Draco had known his parents would react with fury. He had never once been naive enough to think this conversation would end well.
Throughout, their words had been sharp and cutting — an experience unlike anything he had known, in either of his lives.
He had thought he could endure it. He had been doing so. He had been holding himself together, thinking of Hermione, managing quite well —
Until his father used that word.
"Please do not use that insulting word in front of me," Draco said quietly, and with finality.
He was faintly surprised to find that he was repeating, almost word for word, what Dumbledore had said to him in the Astronomy Tower in his previous life. Those words had apparently never left him.
Lucius moved to respond — but for the first time in his life, his son interrupted him.
"Father." The boy's voice was cold and clear, the warmth withdrawn from it entirely. "That word will not change my mind. It only makes you seem undignified."
"You insolent boy — how dare you interrupt me — at my own table!" Lucius gripped his serpent-headed cane, staring at Draco as though he might deliver an Unforgivable at any moment.
Is this all you cannot handle, Father? Draco thought, watching his father's face. If someone interrupted you at will — or worse, threatened your life at this very table — and all you could do was tremble, how would that feel?
The cold thought passed through him, and he began.
"I do not believe anyone at this table is observing much conversational etiquette," Draco said, with measured contempt. "You have been dismissing and personally attacking an innocent, exceptional girl that neither of you has ever once met." He curled his lip. "So what if she is Muggle? Father — what right do you have to call Muggles filthy and lowly?"
He looked at his shocked parents — clearly unused to their son speaking this way — and continued, louder and with the calm certainty of someone who has thought all of this through long ago:
"You travel freely throughout the Muggle world. You have more than twenty Muggle sports cars in your garage. The Malfoy family has made a fortune investing in Muggle currency and Muggle assets. And this ancestral estate — this very land beneath our feet — was granted to our family by the people you call filthy and lowly."
Lucius's expression shifted drastically. He moved his lips, but Draco hadn't finished.
"And now you tell me you look down on Muggles?" He took a breath. "Isn't that rather hypocritical? Who looks down on the people who gave them everything?"
Lucius's face drained of colour.
"Do you know what toxic ideas you are promoting?" His expression contorted. He was shouting now. "This is blasphemous! You do not deserve to be a Malfoy!"
A teacup, hurled in blind rage, flew across the table at Draco.
Tea splashed across his face as the cup shattered against the marble floor.
"Stop that!" Narcissa rose immediately, placing herself between father and son, forgetting entirely which side she was meant to be on. "Lucius — stop! Please!"
With trembling hands, she summoned a ceramic tissue box — peacock blue with orchid-and-butterfly motifs and gilded bronze trim — and held it out to her son.
"Xiaolong — wipe your face —" she whispered.
"I'm all right, Mother. Please, sit down." Draco said it quietly, evenly, without moving, his fingers clenched white at his sides.
"This has gotten completely out of hand. We have all lost our tempers." Narcissa sat down and said softly, "Let us stop here for today. Please."
"No. If we are going to have this conversation, we will have it properly." Draco let the cold tea run down his face. His voice was steady and clear. "I have known this conversation would happen sooner or later. It should have happened long ago."
Under Narcissa's anxious gaze, Draco finally reached for a napkin and wiped the tea from his face.
He did it carefully. Deliberately.
Then, swallowing his wounded pride, he said firmly, "Father. The question of whether I am worthy of the Malfoy name is not yours to decide. I am a Malfoy in blood, in name, and in every line of the family tapestry. That does not change."
Lucius snorted coldly, watching his son with narrowed eyes, waiting.
"In the word 'purity' — Sanctimonia — 'pureblood' comes third. It is preceded by 'pure' and 'unblemished.' Does anyone here still remember what those other words mean?" Draco's expression had grown very calm. "Are those qualities only a matter of bloodline?"
"Bloodline is the cornerstone of all family interests!" Lucius said fiercely. "Do I need to remind you of that, you foolish child?"
Draco was not so easily shaken.
He toyed with the napkin in his hands and said, at his leisure, "If we are discussing bloodline — then in our long history as Malfoys, there have been those who courted Muggle queens, those who married Muggles directly, and those who showed particular favour to Muggles."
He raised his eyes and looked directly at his father.
"What makes you so certain that the only thing passed down through Malfoy blood is this insistence on purity?"
He had not wasted a single one of the years since his rebirth. Among the countless evenings he had spent in the Malfoy library — a library Hermione had coveted from the moment she heard of it — he had worked through even the Malfoy family genealogy with the same thorough attention he gave everything else.
The conclusion was clear: quite a number of Malfoys had married Muggles.
Before the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was enacted in 1692, the Malfoy family had maintained extensive ties with Muggle high society. The Muggle antiques and artworks scattered throughout Malfoy Manor were the most eloquent evidence — the majority of them gifts from Muggle royalty and nobility, proving that the family had once moved freely between both worlds.
Narcissa had gone perfectly still in her armchair.
She was staring at her son.
Just now, Xiaolong had called her "Mother" — not "Mum." His voice had been serious and distant, as though addressing a stranger.
In that instant, she felt as though she were looking at someone she did not know.
It was as if his body housed another Draco entirely — cold, unyielding, unfamiliar — rather than the beloved boy she had raised.
How could her Little Dragon say these things?
This was a child she had nurtured herself, fed on the precepts of the Noble House of Malfoy and the pure-blooded traditions of the Black family — every meal he had ever eaten had been prepared in service of those beliefs.
Who had put these ideas in his head?
Was it the Muggle girl? No — these arguments were too carefully constructed, too deeply considered, for a girl with no wizarding background to have planted them.
Perhaps it was some irresponsible professor. It wouldn't be Severus — whatever else he was, he was still a Slytherin.
Albus Dumbledore, then?
Narcissa examined her son in alarm, running through possibilities.
And then she saw it.
Xiaolong's grey eyes were steady and resolute — fearless and unwavering — with a look that was painfully, horribly familiar.
It was the look of Sirius Black, many years ago.
The same self-certainty. The same fearlessness. The same immovable conviction.
Merlin — was she fated to suffer the same grief as Aunt Walburga? Mother and child estranged, never to reconcile, never knowing whether the other was alive or dead?
No. Absolutely not, Narcissa told herself, with everything she had.
Lucius's mouth had been twitching.
He had stopped throwing things. Instead, he struck back with words:
"You fool! That was centuries ago — everything has changed! Since the Statute of Secrecy was enacted, the Malfoy family made a deliberate choice to change course. It was in the family's interest to do so!"
"Interest?" Draco said. "So the Malfoy family's devotion to pureblood status has not always been a matter of principle. In the very beginning, the Malfoys did not consider pureblood status particularly noble. Have you forgotten those original intentions?" He tilted his head. "What gives you the right to despise Muggle-borns? Have you gone so far down the path of fanaticism that you have forgotten where the Malfoy family began?"
Lucius's restraint collapsed entirely.
"It is not your place to lecture me — you ungrateful boy!" he snapped, his breath coming harder. "You ignorant, self-righteous fool — do you think you can justify betraying your family's beliefs by pulling a few records from an old genealogy book?"
His voice grew harder still.
"Draco Malfoy — you spoiled brat — you have no idea what the world looks like, and you have absolutely no appreciation for what I have built and sacrificed for this family!"
"What the world looks like..." Draco looked at his father's face and said quietly, "Who can guarantee they are seeing it clearly, rather than through the lens of their own interests?"
Lucius felt a throbbing in his temples.
That teacup — the first time in his life he had ever hurled anything at his son. Utterly undignified, and it had brought him no satisfaction whatsoever.
He had always prided himself on his self-control — he was not a sentimental man, not one to be moved by anyone save Cissy — but at that moment he felt a dull, unfamiliar ache in his chest.
And alongside it, a surge of fury he could not quite contain.
He gripped the silver teapot in front of him, wishing he could throw it again, or splash more cold tea across his son's infuriatingly composed face and wake him up.
Splash him awake, Lucius thought, in the way one does when one has no better idea.
But Draco was already entirely awake. His clear eyes showed no excitement, no fear, no wavering.
He seemed wholly unbothered by his father's uncharacteristic outburst.
And that composure alarmed Lucius.
It was genuinely alarming.
A fifteen-year-old boy — with the fearlessness of a newborn and a near-ruthless calm — was openly, systematically challenging his father's authority.
He had refuted Lucius with logic, point by measured point, in a way that made "naive" an entirely insufficient word.
He had clearly been preparing for this conversation for a long time.
That was the most frightening thing of all.
Lucius could manage a hot-headed son. That sort could be brought around eventually. But this cool, collected, thoroughly prepared son was something else.
Draco held his father's gaze.
How he had once idolised this man. Had taken his father's word as absolute. Had believed there was no problem Lucius could not solve, no truth about life that Lucius could not define.
Until the day he had understood that his father could be wrong, and the beliefs Lucius held could be flawed. By then, of course, it had been too late to do anything about it.
"Throw it if you want, Father," Draco said quietly, glancing at the silver teapot Lucius was gripping so tightly. "It will not change my mind. Smash it on my face, if that would make you feel better."
Lucius glared.
His son's self-possessed expression reignited every flicker of rage. He gritted his teeth, searching for words that might finally crack that insufferable composure —
And was cut off, abruptly, by his wife.
"No — enough!" Narcissa had abandoned her careful, soft-spoken manner. "I think we are all exhausted!"
She was in turmoil — heartache and anger tangled together — and she did not know how to begin untangling them.
What she did know was that if she allowed this proud, stubborn father and this proud, stubborn son to continue, the evening would end in catastrophe.
She did not want her son to become another Sirius Black — fleeing the family in the middle of a violent argument, never looking back, spending the best years of his life first drifting and then imprisoned in Azkaban.
That possibility terrified her.
Narcissa glanced at the gilded bronze clock on the sideboard as though only now noticing the time.
She drew a breath, trying to soften her voice, though urgency still ran through it: "Xiaolong — it is late. Go to your room and rest. I need to speak with your father."
Her son did not move. He kept his gaze on Lucius — the same stubborn, immovable expression on his face that was, she realised with a chill, entirely his father's.
Narcissa let out a quiet breath.
She reached under the table and found Lucius's free hand, squeezing it gently. She held her husband's gaze and said nothing — the look was enough. Something in Lucius's expression cracked and softened, just slightly.
"You may go," Lucius said, coldly, to his son. "We will continue tomorrow."
Narcissa looked once more at her son — his expression calm, stubborn, and carrying a quiet sorrow she hadn't expected — and said, in a tone that was almost pleading: "Go and rest, Xiaolong. Please. We will talk tomorrow."
Her son gave her the briefest nod. Then he rose abruptly, straightened his posture, pushed open the heavy carved door, and walked out.
He left without a goodnight.
Without a backward glance.
His silhouette was desolate and unfamiliar all at once.
He never looked back.