Maybe I'm just too demanding
Maybe I'm just like my father too bold
"Forgive me for saying so, Young Master, but I'm nearly certain it wouldn't be wise for you to-"
Draco turned on his heel, causing his Squib butler to run straight into him. Not stepping back and not flinching, Draco looked down his nose at the servant. "You're not forgiven, and I've no use for your certainty, Malcolm." He turned away and walked into his bedroom, throwing the ebony wardrobe open wide and selecting a few things.
He began to undress, completely unabashed by the presence of the older butler. It had been common enough to go about whatever business was necessary in front of house elves; why should it be any different with servants? Draco pulled a tight, cable-knit black sweater over his head and decided the black slacks he wore would suffice.
There was no time to muddle over dressing.
When he turned to retrieve his wand from the nightstand, he ran into Malcolm again.
"They think you dead, you know," the servant said mildly, somehow managing to look down on the long-bodied Draco.
The words made Draco wince, and he once again found himself fighting the voice of his father, the ever-present, drawling, horrible voice.
"Oh, yes, my son, they thought you died with me like a loyal boy instead of the cowardly, traitorous brat that you are."
"It doesn't matter!" Draco burst out, causing Malcolm to raise an eyebrow.
"Will the Young Master need his robes for his journey?"
"I don't need my fucking robes!" Draco shouted, shoving his hands through his pale hair and making it stand in all directions. "The only thing I need is in bloody fucking England!"
"If everything the Young Master needs is in England, then I presume he won't need his wand." Malcolm kept his face blank, perversely pleased with being difficult. It was hard to spend so many years magicless and not be at least a little bitter.
"Of course I need my fucking wand, you troublesome old fuck!" So saying, Draco snatched the wand off the nightstand and clasped it in his fingers nearly hard enough to break it.
He felt the anger surge through him, and with it a wave of despair. He was acting like his father all over again, the madness, the incomprehensible urges.
The overwhelming desire for one end goal.
"Maybe that's why she left, you ungrateful brat."
"Fine," Draco shouted. "Fine," he said in a calmer, colder tone, his teeth bared in a predatory smile. "If that's how it's going to be, then let it. A Malfoy lets nothing stand in his way."
The young man Disapparated with a pop, leaving Malcolm gaping.
It was the first time the Young Master had ever admitted his identity.
~~~
It had been easy, too easy, for Bill to figure out where his sister had gone and who she'd been with. After all, nothing in the world was more telling than money, and all it took was a few clever, numbers-savvy goblins to help Bill keep track of large exchanges going on, magical money to American money.
A pattern started to appear with the largest exchanges in Boston, many Galleons exchanged along with British pounds, and Bill couldn't help but wonder about the rumors that had flown of a missing Malfoy corpse and missing Malfoy millions.
But he'd kept his mouth shut, because he loved his little sister, and he'd seen she was unhappy. In that way, his family could be terribly blind. So much did they want everyone to be safe and happy that they often didn't notice when people weren't.
But as she sat and told him her story in abbreviated bits and pieces, Bill started to see that America had changed nothing.
Ginny was still unhappy, and what was more, she was confused.
"He needs help, Bill. And he doesn't care about me, so it can only harm him for me to hang about. Who needs an enemy, eh?" She said it rationally, so rationally that it made Bill's heart wrench.
"There's a fine line between love and hate, Ginny." When had his sister grown up, his baby sister gotten big enough to speak of love with? "I think you already know that."
But she turned her face away from him, a denial, and looked to the sky. "It's getting late. What say we gather the family?" Ginny looked down at him, a lock of thick hair falling in her face.
Bill wondered if she could feel it in the air, the crackling, the electricity, the tension coming to a head. "Sure, love," he said absently, casting his own eyes to the sky.
Maybe you're just like my mother
She's never satisfied
He landed in the middle of a pile of clothing, and he strongly suspected it was all in dire need of scourgifying.
He'd never seen the place, so his idea of where to Apparate had been of the vaguest ilk; he'd been imagining a slovenly den, and so that's precisely what he landed in: the twins' bedroom.
Draco knew immediately that he was alone in the house, and more specifically, that Ginny was not there.
He could not smell her, he could not hear her, and he could not feel her in the room.
"A son of mine, in the Weasley Burrow?"
"I'm no son of yours," Draco answered the persistent voice, wondering how many years it would take for the damnable man to fade from memory.
So far, time had shown no effects on the cruel bastard's grip over his son.
With a howl like a wounded animal, Draco sent dual handfuls of clothes flying, his outstretched wand blowing holes in walls, tearing upholstery and drapery as he dashed through the house, longing for a taste of her, a glimpse of her.
He was not rewarded, and when he burst out of the front doors of the Burrow, his breath was coming in great gulps, his hunger unabated, his thirst unslaked.
"I thought you'd have learned something about women by now, with that whore you had for a mother."
Draco felt his throat constrict, the tears prick the backs of his eyelids, and he forced himself not to listen to his father, not to think of his mother, to think only of Ginny, of what was rightfully his, of what had been wrongfully lost.
"Come back," he whispered hoarsely, Disapparating with a pop.
~~~
It should have been pleasant. It should have felt like a homecoming.
Instead, it felt crowded and forced, and most of all, deceitful.
Little secrets grew big with time, and with big secrets came big responsibilities. As the falsehoods trickled from her mouth, Ginny kept her lips bent in a smile.
Boston was fun.
Muggles were interesting.
I learned a great deal.
Her heart ached for the family she'd missed, and ached even more for the family she was lying to with every breath. But how could she tell them? How could she tell them what had sent her to Boston, what had kept her there?
And how could she tell them what had sent her back?
Even as she nodded and smiled, listening to updates from each member of the family, she wondered if she'd done the right thing. Had she been magnanimous or had she just been jealous?
And therein lay the problem. She hadn't left out of sheer nobility, but out of the knowledge that the man she had come very much to need didn't need her back. She'd gone miles to be with him and found the one thing she didn't even know she wanted, and still he was the same.
He remained unchanged by her presence, and each day he grew harder, more troubled.
Now she was back in England, and she thought she could feel the distance spanning between them.
Across from the table, watching the glittering tears behind the pretty smile, Bill wondered if she knew.
A man would come for what he wanted, and he would follow when he was walked away from.