2. Chapter 2

Edited 31/3/2020

Original A/N: Yay! People liked the story, and such. Thank you to my lovely reviewers, you guys are amazing! I'll try and update at least once a week, but school just started and I have the semester from hell. Yay. Anyway, here's the next chapter...

Oh yeah, disclaimer, I don't own Harry Potter. Three cheers Queen Jo!

After several drinks at the Leaky Cauldron, Draco was perfectly blissed out. Alcohol was the only thing that could do that to him.

He bid Blaise goodbye, watching his friend stumble over himself. A happy teddy bear indeed. Chuckling slightly, Draco apparated home.

The darkness of night was closing in quickly around Malfoy Manor. The crisp September air was chilling on his skin. The wind whistled through the trees surrounding his childhood home. He felt his chest contract, and his ability to breathe diminished as he stared up at the looming building. Its windows were black, its shadow was large and menacing. He closed his eyes, treasuring his last few moments of peace. Taking a deep breath, he forced his feet to carry him to the door. He pulled at the handle, taking one last glance at the world. Then, he entered the Manor.

The halls were long and haunting, but that wasn't what Draco was frightened of. As he walked through the corridors towards the library, what truly frightened him about the Manor appeared.

Whispers filled the halls, suffocating him. They were the whispers of everyone who had been killed in the drawing room, in the dungeon, or on the lawn during a desperate escape attempt.

Draco shuddered. There were no ghosts at the Manor, that he was sure of. They were more like slight imprints that would fill the air with tortured voices. The whispers never stopped. All day and all night, he heard them. Some voices he recognized and some he didn't. There were too many to remember, too many killed, too many tortured…

Draco started to sprint through the halls, running away from the whispers that haunted him. They haunted him always. His mother, who still lived in the Manor, never seemed to hear them. But Draco could. He knew why, of course. His mother had never hurt anyone, never tortured anyone, and never killed anyone with her own wand. Draco had killed and tortured, and therefore, the spirits tortured him in return.

Draco hated the Manor. If it was up to him, he would have moved out the second Voldemort lost. However, he was put there on magical house arrest while he waited for his Death Eater trial. After he was cleared, he had been planning on leaving the country. He wasn't a Gryffindor. He didn't have the courage to stay and face it all.

But then Lucius had been put in Azkaban.

Draco was neutral about it, but his mother was devastated. Narcissa Malfoy was a good woman, who loved her son and husband more than she loved herself. Once Lucius was put away, Narcissa was alone. All her friends had been locked away in prison. Her family had either died or was still alive and hated her. Draco was the only thing she had left. He couldn't leave her with nothing.

So, he stayed. He stayed and was plagued with nightmares beyond imagination. He stayed and was made a social pariah, until he was able to start his own business. He stayed and was forced to deal with the things he was so ready to run away from. He stayed for his mother, who he loved more than anything. He never showed affection, except when he was with her. She was his one soft spot under his layers of cold stone.

But now, seven years had gone by since Draco had decided to stay at the Manor. Narcissa had managed to rebuild her life. She had patched up her relationship with her sister Andromeda. She had found herself a new group of friends, not involving Death Eaters. She had let go of the past.

So Draco had decided he needed to let go as well. He was finally leaving the Manor. He had spoken to his mother about the subject, and she agreed it was time. In fact, he was moving out tomorrow.

Draco arrived at the library door, pushed it open and walked in. He quickly made his way to the back, and found his mother reading a book in her favourite armchair. She looked up and smiled at him. He smiled back, his mother being one of the only things he smiled about.

"Hello, Draco dear," she said. "How's Blaise?"

Draco shrugged his shoulders. "Same as usual, I suppose."

They made idle chitchat for a few more minutes. Draco tried not to grimace. He hated small talk. After several more minutes, Draco decided he was going to head to bed. As he was leaving, his mother grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"Draco, darling," she said softly, looking up at him with wide eyes. "I know you're moving out tomorrow. I probably won't be up to see you go. So, I wanted to say," she hesitated slightly. Taking a deep breath, she rallied on. "I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for staying. After the war, I know this is the last place you wanted to be, with everything that happened. But you stayed anyway. That meant a lot to me."

He didn't exactly know what to say. Even though he loved his mother, expressing emotion was not his forte. He was still a Malfoy, after all. Nodding slightly, knowing that his mother understood how he felt, he left the library.

The whispers followed him up the stairs. His room had been stripped clean and packed into boxes. His bed was the only piece of furniture left. He pulled on some pyjamas. Climbing into bed, his anxiety rose. He tried to calm down, but he couldn't. He knew what was coming. And, sure enough, the second he passed into the world of unconsciousness, the torture started.

The nightmares were indescribable pain. He was always forced to relive some significant moment from the war. Some days he was at the Final Battle, as he watched person after person fall around him. Some days he was in the Room of Requirement, with Crabbe burning in the flames. Some days he was on top of the Astronomy Tower, Snape sending Dumbledore into the abyss. His fault, it was all his fault. But tonight, it wasn't one of those classics.

Tonight, he was back in the drawing room of the Manor. Tonight, he stood by and watched as Hermione Granger was tortured before his eyes by his crazy aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange. Each of her screams sent a shot of agony through his core. He stood there frozen as the Gryffindor cried out and thrashed on the floor while Bellatrix cackled.

It was endless.

He screamed out for Bellatrix to stop, but nothing changed. It was as if he didn't even exist. Bellatrix laughed viciously, relishing in it. Draco started crying as well, fighting to reach Granger and save her from this fate. She didn't deserve this. She never deserved this.

He couldn't move, he couldn't do anything. Useless. He was completely useless. He had no power. He couldn't save her. He couldn't do anything. He hadn't at the time and he couldn't now. Guilt washed over him. He drowned in it, until he woke up in the morning, doused in sweat with Granger's screams still echoing in his head.

Draco spent the rest of the day moving boxes into his new flat. When he had left the dreaded Manor, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off his chest. He could breathe easier. He smiled for no reason. He wasn't even thinking about the horrific dream he had experienced just hours beforehand. He was free.

Draco walked up the steps to his building, levitating a box behind him. He had searched all over London for a new flat, seeing countless different options, but never finding one that was quite to his liking. He had finally found one in an enchanted building near Big Ben. He had liked the building because of its view of the river. He enjoyed watching the boats go by.

He had also liked it because it was only for wizards and witches. Draco was doing very well at moving past his prejudices towards muggles and muggleborns (mudblood had been outlawed), but he wasn't ready to move in with them yet.

He walked into his flat and gazed around at his new living space. This was his place, his sanctuary away from his past and present. It was perfect, currently covered with boxes but perfect, nonetheless. He smiled. This was brilliant.

As he levitated his final box into his new flat, he tripped over another box he had left lying in the middle of the hardwood floor. As he stumbled, he lost his magical grip on the levitated box, which fell to the ground, its contents flying across the room.

Draco swore, cursing the fact that he'd have to pick everything back up. It was so carefully organized, too. He had been meticulous about packing. He sighed, annoyed, and quickly got to work.

After picking up several miscellaneous objects, a letter opener here, a quill there, he came across his copy of Hogwarts, A History. As he picked up the old brown book, the binding broke and an old newspaper fell out from between the pages.

Confused, Draco put the book down and picked up the old copy of The Daily Prophet. HERMIONE GRANGER, WAR HEROINE, MISSING was splashed across the cover. Below was a smiling picture of Granger, her bushy hair tamed, her brown eyes sparkling.

Draco looked down at the page he held in his hands. He forgot that he'd kept it. It was wrinkled and yellow from seven years of being saved. He grazed his fingers across Granger's smiling face, her eyes twinkling at him, so different from the face he had seen in his dream the night before.

Why Draco had saved it, he couldn't even remember. However, he did remember the day this paper had first come into his possession. It was engraved permanently in his memory. He and his parents were on magical house arrest, awaiting their various trials for involvement with Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

Draco was sitting at the table, eating the eggs one of the house elves had put on the table. That was when the morning post arrived, carried in by various owls. The three Malfoys looked up in anticipation. Every day, more news arrived about the capture of Death Eaters. Every day, they would wait for the fate of other criminals, hoping to get a vague idea of what was in store for them.

The Daily Prophet was dropped in front of his mother by a tawny barn owl. Narcissa picked the paper up, and let her eyes gloss lazily over the first page. Suddenly, she chocked on the juice she'd been drinking. Coughing and spluttering, she reread the page, her eyes widening in obvious shock.

"Narcissa?" Lucius Malfoy asked tentatively, his voice soft and raspy from lack of use. No one in the Malfoy house spoke much nowadays. Everyone kept to themselves and out of the way. "What is it?"

Narcissa laid the paper across the table and stood up, shivering. Lucius and Draco stood up and walked over to her side, where they both read the title. HERMIONE GRANGER, WAR HEROINE, MISSING.

Lucius looked highly distressed, and pulled his wife into his arms. "No one's safe," he muttered, placing his chin on her head. "If they can get to her, no one is safe."

"How could they manage?" Narcissa trembled and curled into her husband's chest. "She must have been so protected, and she's exceptionally talented…for a muggle-born," Narcissa added quickly.

"I don't know," Lucius muttered. "Who would be stupid enough to do this? Potter's best friend? They have the death sentence written across their forehead. Potter never gives up on his friends…bloody fool," Lucius added, also quickly.

Draco scarcely heard them. He couldn't stop staring at the picture. Granger stared back at him. He couldn't understand. He had never particularly liked the bookworm, but he knew she could hold her own. His broken nose from third year testified to that.

How had someone gotten to her? She was the Brightest Witch of The Age, after all. She had survived years of torment. She had survived attacks. She had survived the Battle of Hogwarts, for Merlin's sake! Draco kept his eyes glued to her face. His father was right. If Hermione Granger had been taken, no one was safe.

His parents were trembling, obviously frightened. They all had thought that the light side had won and that there was nothing more to fear from the dark. But Granger's disappearance reignited old fears about the Dark Lord's rage. Narcissa, after all, had saved Potter in the woods. If there were still active Death Eaters, they probably wouldn't be too pleased about that fact.

Draco didn't know what came over him. He grabbed the paper, his mind completely disconnecting from his body, and ran up to his room. His parents stared blankly after him, still clutching each other. He got to his room and bolted the door behind him.

He collapsed onto the floor, crying, not even understanding why. He stayed there for a while, until his parents had the house elves collect him for supper. He had kept the paper though, tucked up inside his copy of Hogwarts, a History. He had seen Granger reading it once when he had stumbled upon her in the library. It seemed fitting to keep Granger there. After that day, he thought of Granger's disappearance constantly for about a year afterwards, until she finally slipped from his mind.

Draco brought his head back to the present. He still couldn't understand why Granger's disappearance had upset him so much at the time. He had thought about it constantly for that first year, and each time the thought filled him with an emotion he couldn't quite describe. He didn't understand it at all. He and Granger had never been friends, never even acquaintances. They were simply enemies. He had teased her, and she had punched him in the face. They had a system, but friendship was never a part of it. So why had he cared so much?

He raked his mind, searching for a reason. It must have been because it meant there were still active Death Eaters, and he was worried about his and his parents' safety. He shook his head, as if shaking any thought of the bookworm out of it. He folded up the paper, put it back in the book, and continued to clean up the box's contents.

The next day Draco woke up bright and early in his new flat, still surrounded by boxes. He felt slightly relaxed. He had still had nightmares, but they weren't as intense or torturous as the prior night's. Leaving Malfoy Manor was already doing him some good.

Draco rolled over and looked at the clock. 8:21, it read. His eyes suddenly shot open. It wasn't that early after all. He had to be at work in nine minutes. It was his first day back at the office since Moscow and he had people he needed to update. He pulled himself out of bed, scarfed down some toast, and dressed quickly. He managed to apparate to work by 8:29.

He was grumbling slightly when he walked through the front doors of Malfoy Industries, located in central London. It was an enchanted building, so muggles never came knocking.

"Welcome back, Mr. Malfoy," said the new secretary, Julie, as he walked through the atrium to the elevators. He nodded in her direction, but he didn't have time to stay and chat. He quickly headed to the seventh and top floor, where he was set to give a meeting about Moscow. He arrived in time, just ahead of all his various heads of departments. He brushed his suit off, got his best corporate face on, and spoke for about an hour about the business.

It was very stereotypical and rather dreary, but Draco enjoyed it. It was numbing and simple, very different from his previous career, evil and villainous. He was good at business as well, and it didn't give him nightmares. The corporate world was perfect for him.

At the end of the meeting, he retreated into his office and sat down at his desk. He was decently tired, and didn't really want to do any work, even as his workload was piling up quickly. He was staring blissfully into space when a knock on the door jolted him back to reality.

"Yeah?" he called out, rather grumpily.

The door opened and a sandy haired man walked in. It was his head of International Offices, Mr. Seamus Finnigan. It still amazed Draco that Seamus was one of his top and most reliable guys in the company. Why the Gryffindor had wanted to work for him after the war was still a mystery to him, but whatever. The man was good at his job.

"Malfoy?" Seamus entered, tentatively, obviously noticing his grumpy mood. Draco smirked. He had taught Seamus well.

"Yeah, Finnigan?" he said, trying to sound more cheerful. He sounded like he was on helium.

Seamus's mouth twitched, but he continued on. "Good news."

"Which is?"

"You know how you wanted to open a starter office in North America?" Draco nodded. "And you wanted me to figure out all the logistics?" He nodded again. "Well, as your welcome back present, I've got it all in place."

Draco now started paying attention.

"So, the wizards in Toronto need an industry that's...well, like Malfoy Industries. I've been looking into it, and the market there right now is brilliant. If we can jump on this opportunity, we will get some serious galleons."

"Umm…where's Toronto?" Draco asked, feeling a bit stupid.

"Canada," Seamus replied, his mouth twitching again.

"Like, beavers and ice?" Draco asked, an early lesson on countries coming back to him.

"Pretty much. It's one of the biggest cities in Canada, and the majority of wizards in Canada reside in or near Toronto. It's a big magical area, who knows why?"

"Hmmm," Draco said, nodding. Canada. That could work. He had originally been hoping for New York, or maybe Los Angeles, but the main goal was a foothold in the North American market.

Toronto. Interesting. He pondered it, not finding many drawbacks to the idea. And according to Seamus, they could get a lot of galleons from that area. It seemed like an ideal new location. Little cold, but oh well. He could deal.

"Alright," Draco smiled at Seamus, business being one of the only other things he smiled about. And frankly, he needed little convincing on the North American option. Everyone knew that opening an office there was a top priority, they just needed an in and a location. The final two had been Seamus's job to find over the past few months, and it seemed that the pieces had finally fallen into place.

"Perfect," Seamus replied. "If we want an office there, we need to send you over this week to set it up. I already found a location, and I know some people from this office who wouldn't mind transferring."

"Why do I have to go?" Draco whined, sounding very much like a five year old denied dessert.

"Same reason as Moscow. You own the company, and even though you are a total git, you're great at business."

Draco rolled his eyes, but he knew it was true.

"Fine," he said, with a little spite in his voice from the "git" comment. "As long as no one gives me a beaver."

Seamus laughed and exited the office, chuckling. "You really know nothing about Canada."

Original A/N: Hey guys! I know the beginning of the chapter is kinda crappy and is a little dark and such, but I wanted to make it clear Draco suffered from the war a fair amount. I also wanted to make his relationship with his mother clear. Those things are important. The next chapters won't be focused on that, I just needed to make those two things clear early on. Review