My parents, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, rarely saw eye-to-eye when it came to parenting. My Father was a traditional man who followed all the rules and firmly believed that the path of my life was set in stone from the very moment of my conception. I would attend Hogwarts Academy for Witches and Wizards once I came of age, just as all Malfoys before I had, I would be expected to work hard and excel in all of my subjects, be initiated into Voldemort's coven of Death Eaters once I reached the acceptable age, and prior to my graduation from Hogwarts, I was to marry a woman from another pureblood family as a political maneuver. My father would choose the woman I married.

My mother, Narcissa, knew her 'place' as the wife of Lucius Malfoy, so publicly; she rarely protested against his ideals and rarely spoke unless she felt it mandatory to voice whatever it was she had to say. In private, however, she was a very different woman, and I shared a bond with her that was pretty much non-existent with my Father.

"Am I going to be just like Daddy when I grow up?" I asked one day as we ate lunch together in the expensive dining room. My Father had gone away on Ministry business for the day. My Mother looked up from her food.

"Draco, has anybody ever told you that life is like an open book?" I was only nine years old at the time, so the simile made very little sense to me.

"What does that mean?" I asked, and she smiled softly. "It means that you shouldn't make yourself miss out on other opportunities in life, darling." She answered.

"If you keep telling yourself that you will grow up to be just like your Father in every aspect of your life, then it's highly likely you will because you would be continually unconsciously shutting out any other chances you have to make your life different. But if you keep your options open and remember that nothing is ever really set in stone with the exception of your inevitable death, then only fate knows where your life will lead you." My mother always seemed to know the right words.

My relationship with my parents began to change not long after I turned fifteen, and Voldemort was resurrected. Already I had begun to rebel against the inflexible régime my Father had laid out for me, and with a little help from my friends, I discovered my truly rebellious side that had lay dormant in me for too long.

Sure, we went through what you could best describe as the stereotypical teenage rebellion phase, as in we illegally obtained alcohol and other mind-altering substances that we used frequently, had promiscuous sex and frequent mood swings with our parents, but that was only the tip of the iceberg to me. In the midst of my fifth year, I received a copy of "The Quibbler", and inside it was interview with everybody's Golden Boy a.k.a Harry Potter, chronicling his version of events on the final night of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, what happened to Cedric Diggory, and the resurrection of Lord Voldemort through his eyes along with their duel.

It also pointed the finger at several previously suspected Death Eaters, and for some reason, I really wasn't that surprised to learn that my Father had been named, though I can hardly say I appreciated the entire school knowing that my Father was a Death-Eater.

The moment I had finished reading the article, I realized that I had found the path I was destined to walk, and it was the path of grey, not the path my Father had taken, nor the path of that old coot Dumbledore. I silently thanked my Mother for her advice six years beforehand.

I would never understand why my Mother always stood by my Father, even after he was sent to Azkaban at the end of my fifth year. She visited him every Sunday, never took another man while he was imprisoned, and despite her obvious dislike of Lord Voldemort, she was a faithful follower simply because it was what my Father wanted.

"I'm a married woman, Draco." She answered when I asked her one day why she had never attempted to break free from the life she was living. I was sixteen, nearly seventeen at the time. "And as a married woman, my place is beside my husband no matter what."

"That's a bit old-fashioned, don't you think?" She shrugged her delicate shoulders. "You're a young man, Draco, and you're from a different generation. I don't expect you to understand, but it's just the way things always have and always will be for me."

My Father's imprisonment meant that I was able to elude my reception of the Dark Mark for another year, but it was not long after that that my grandfather, Othello Malfoy, ordered that I was to receive the Dark Mark exactly one week prior to my Hogwarts Graduation. As time began to slip through my fingers like water, panic and rebellion took over my common sense, and I did the only thing I thought I could do. I ran away the morning after my Graduation. I left little other than a note for my Mother, telling her why I had to leave and that I loved her but I couldn't see or have any contact with her again until it was safe for me to return home.

I went into hiding for the next seven years as a muggle. Contraire to popular belief outside of Slytherin, I wasn't a half-blood or muggle hater. I was mostly apathetic towards people's bloodlines, with the exception of that bossy know-it-all Hermione Granger, who I felt had needed to be knocked off her pedestal.

My life for the next seven years could be best described as the life of a solitary bohemian. I never stayed in one place for very long, normally just until the lease ran out, then I drifted onto the next available place. Sometimes I rented an apartment, sometimes I rented a house, but I always rented alone. I was bohemian with my employment too, and never made any close friends in any of my jobs due to my rather anti-social ways.

Over the years I worked behind cash registers, outdoors in the extremities of hot and cold weather, behind deli counters, behind office desks and even in restaurants and bars. I changed my identity too, in order to decrease the risk of being sighted by anybody that knew me.

During those seven years, I never once heard from my Mother. No Howlers or Owls. No surprise visits on the doorstep. No Birthday or Christmas cards. She had done as I had bid by not contacting me, but still, a tiny part of me always wished that she would rebel just once and try to find me. I knew she never would though.

But I can hardly blame her for our seven years of silence, as I had also neglected to contact her out of fear and stubborness. If it became known to Voldemort that she was in contact with me but wasn't telling him, it would have meant trouble for the both of us. I would be hunted down and forced to receive the Dark Mark, my Mother would undergo severe torture for hiding me from Voldemort, and eventually, I would end up in Azkaban, just like my Father.

I finally returned to the Wizarding World at the age of twenty-five. Throughout the years, I had managed to keep up on the news in the Wizarding world by secretly obtaining copies of The Daily Prophet and having them sent to an alternate name and address in case anyone attempted to follow the Owl that brought me the paper. I missed out on what could best be described as years of darkness that was only ended upon the deaths of Voldemort and Harry Potter.

Barely two years after I had left, the Wizarding world was thrown into turmoil upon Voldemort's full-throttle attack on Hogwarts. Over three hundred students were murdered, nearly all of them half-blood or muggle. Death notices began to appear on a regular basis after what was appropriately named the "Hogwarts Slaughterfest". Some of them I knew, and some of them I didn't.

The name of my dear childhood friend, Pansy Parkinson, was the first familiar name amongst the notices. Goyle's name appeared in there too, along with the name of my aunt, Bellatrix Black, and a handful of names that fell under the categories of friend, family, acquaintance and enemy appeared as the days, weeks, months, and eventually, years went by. And every day, when I read the Death Notices, I always feared that I would see my Mother's name in there.

That fear finally came true in my fifth year on the run.

I don't know if there was an elaborate funeral or not, I didn't attend. I was scared of being caught, and I didn't want to accept that my Mother was really gone forever. But once the seven years came to an end, I knew that I no longer had any reason to stay away. It felt so unnerving, standing there at my Mother's grave. I may have been a man of twenty-five, but at that moment, all I wanted was for my Mother to be alive so she could take me in her arms and comfort me like she had done so many times before when I was only a child. "

Well, I came back." I said, not caring if anybody thought me insane for talking to a tombstone.

"I really don't know whether or not you'd be proud of me today. I mean, I don't have a family or a steady job, but I can at least say that I took the advice you gave me when I was nine, about my life being an open book. I didn't let tradition dictate who I had to be. Every decision I made, I made myself, and it was all thanks to you." I paused for a moment, thinking of what to say next.

"I guess my only real regret was that in order for me to break free and find my own path, I had to leave you behind for good. I think that you knew deep down I would have to do that one day, don't ask me how I knew you knew, I guess you would call it maternal instinct. And well, I guess I just wanted to thank you for never trying to hold me back and letting me find my own path, even if it wasn't the path that you would have wanted me to take. And I also wanted to thank you, well, for being my Mother. I know you weren't perfect, but you did the best you could do as the wife of a Malfoy, and I'm glad that you tried and you were able to show me that you cared." I paused to bend down and remove the wilted flowers from my Mother's grave.

"I guess I came back for two reasons, really." I said as I put fresh roses on the grave

"The first reason was so I could say all that stuff I just said. The other reason was so I could finally let go. You see, when I left, I only left physically. As my mother, you still had me mentally and emotionally because you were the most influential person in my life. But now I'm here, and I've said everything that I've wanted to say for so long since I learned of your death and accepted that you're gone from this world, I feel like I've been set free." I allowed a peaceful smile to curve on my mouth as my hands gently stroked the off-white marble of the tombstone.

THE END