Lyra had never been the type to chew on her fingernails before. Which was strange, considering she had had some nervous tendencies throughout her life. She'd also had many reasons to be nervous before. But never had she felt nervousness physically pained as it did that night. And, before she knew it, she had chewed at them for hours. 

They must have been done by now. Whatever had happened at Hogwarts must be over, as they were several hours into the night. But yet there was no sign of her son. She thought he would come straight home afterwards, no matter the outcome. The only way he wouldn't was if he was hurt. She tried to push the thought out her mind. She'd deal with that if need be. There was no need to break down unless she knew something had happened. 

She hadn't been able to sleep. She was sure she would the darkest circles of her life underneath her eyes the next day. But how could she even consider laying down? Before the morning came, her son would either be a murderer or a boy in immediate danger because he had disobeyed the Dark Lord. 

The door to Malfoy Manor opened. It wasn't someone knocking or politely coming to see her. It was opened with such dramatic vigor that one of two scenarios must have been happening. Either the Aurors had come for her once again or it was Draco, putting his dramatic Black genes to use. 

She got up from her seat, desperately hoping it was the latter. She opened the door to entrance hall, where two men were walking in the door. They both looked shaken, dirty and like they had had a long night. She could understand that, seeing as they were who they were. 

"Draco? Severus?" Lyra asked, her face tense as she looked at the both of them. Draco looked pained and tired, and it broke her heart. He didn't meet her gaze, only staring at the ground as if he had seen something horrible. She was sure he had. She just hoped he hadn't done something horrible. 

"Lyra," Snape greeted her, his face not betraying any emotion. She wished he did, so she could have some kind of hint as to what had happened. Sure, Draco looked sad, but he had done so for a year now. "I can't stay. I thought I'd drop Draco off before I give my rapport to the Dark Lord."

"Is he..." The blonde swallowed a lump in her throat. "Is he dead?"

Snape made sure to stay stoic, his face as emotionless as usual. "Yes."

Lyra clenched her jaw, not wanting to ask the next question as she watched Draco and the damaged look on his face. But she knew she had to know, if she didn't know then she couldn't be there him. "And did he-?"

The dark-haired Professor cut her off, knowing exactly what she wanted to do. His shoulders tensed up as he answered. "I did."

She let out a breath, slightly relieved. Though she wasn't happy Dumbledore had been killed, there was a selfish relief in knowing that her son wasn't a murder. He hadn't lost all his innocence. 

Snape pursed his lips for a moment, casting a quick glance to his traumatized young student once again. He knew he had to leave to see the Dark Lord once he returned from his mission, and didn't have time to stay. "Well, I'll see you later."

He turned around, prepared to walk out of the house when she called out, stopping him in his tracks. "Severus! Thank you."

He turned his head, looking at her. He was surprised to see her look at him with such kind eyes after all the issues they had had over the years, though he supposed he had earned her gratitude for protecting her son. He looked a bit uncomfortable for a moment, but sent her a tense nod before walking out of the house. 

It was quiet in the manor, except for Draco's heavy breathing. Beads of sweat were running down his forehead, as he had to run and escape the Order of the Phoenix before they could get away from Hogwarts. 

"Oh, Draco." Lyra sighed, approaching him with sympathetic eyes. He still didn't meet her eyes, but she tried to reach out, to pull him into her arms to give him the comfort he so obviously needed. 

But he didn't want it. He pushed himself away from her, finally looking up at her. His eyes were red. He had been crying. But he didn't look sad right now, he just looked angry. "Don't- don't touch me! Just tell me... is it true?"

Lyra frowned, blinking in surprise. She didn't know what he was asking about, but no matter what it was, she could feel the nervousness tingling in her stomach. "Is what true?"

Draco looked betrayed, in a way he never had before. No matter what arguments they may have had before, it was nothing like this. It frightened her. "About- about you and the Order of the Phoenix and Professor Lupin and James bloody Potter?"

Lyra's heart stopped beating for a moment. She felt like she couldn't breathe, like she was suffocating. Hearing his name come from Draco, knowing that he had discovered that she had lied to him his whole life. She had prayed for years that he would never find out. It would be safer for both of them. "Where- where did you hear that? Who told you?"

Draco looked like his whole world had some crashing down. He opened his mouth and closed it again, shaking his head. When he finally spoke, it came out as loud yelling she hadn't heard from him before. "So it's true, is it? Isn't it?"

"Yes. Yes, it's true," Lyra admitted quietly. She had no idea how he could have found out about this. His task had nothing to do with her, it didn't make sense. "Just hear me out-"

"Why would I do that?" he asked loudly. "You- you've been lying to me my whole life! You lie to me all the bloody time. How are you going to justify that? I'm a Death Eater and you've been fighting with the Order of the Phoenix! What, were going to fight Father? Fight me?"

His mother glanced around, keeping her voice in a low volume. While she wanted to comfort him, to tell him that it was never her intention, she had to use her head. "Keep your voice down. You don't know who's listening."

"I don't care who hears this!" Draco screamed in her face, tears in his eyes, though they still hadn't fallen. He was usually so composed, it shocked her to see him like this.  "You're a liar!"

She could feel herself want to cry. She wanted to explain, to hopefully make him understand but she knew he wouldn't. But, once again, she knew she had to be careful, to use her head before following her heart. "Who else knows?"

The blond boy scoffed, looking incredulous that it was all she could say. He had been used to having his mother's love and attention for so long. Now she was focusing on everything other than him. "Is that all you care about? What about me? Do even care how I feel about this?"

"Of course I care, Draco!" she exclaimed, her eyes burning as she tried not to cry."But what you don't realize is that if someone else finds out about this then I'll die. I'll be tortured and killed! And as a punishment for me, I'm sure they'll go after you as well. I know you're angry and you have every reason to be. But don't let that cloud your judgement. Now, who else knows?"

Draco was quiet for a moment, looking taken aback at her reaction. He had expected her to drop every ounce of logic to attempt to comfort him, but she didn't. After thinking about it, hu understood why she was worried. And he didn't want her to die. But, he also didn't want himself to die. "Nobody. Dumbledore told me. I was the only one there."

Lyra furrowed her brows at Dumbledore having told him, but nodded to herself at knowing he had told nobody else. She ran her fingers through her hair, pacing a bit back and forth. "All right, that's good. You need to keep it a secret. I'm begging you, Draco."

"You mean you want me to lie? To be like you? A liar?" the newly seventeen-year-old boy asked, a deep frown on his face while his voice took on a dark tone she didn't recognize. With his next words, his voice broke. "Does Father know?"

Lyra had more questions she wanted to ask, to make sure they would stay safe but she knew she owed him answers and explanations. "About the Order? Of course not, he'd have stopped me. I made sure he didn't know, that nobody knew. Nobody outside the Order, its allies and the two of us know."

"I know he didn't know about that bloody Phoenix lot! I know he wouldn't have let you!" Draco shouted. Dumbledore had already said she had been a member of the Order behind both his and his father's backs. What he wanted to know was if his father had known her heart was taken before they got together. "Did he know about Potter? Did he know when he married you?"

Lyra knew exactly what answer he wanted to hear, because he had always idolized his father greatly. And for a moment, it was tempting to lie. She didn't want him to lose faith in both his parents and feel more alone in the world. But she knew that she couldn't lie, not about this. "Yes."

That seemed to break Draco's heart even more. His mother- who he had seen as a powerful force of love in life, and his father- the man he had spent all his years looking up to, had both been liars, hiding important truths from him his whole life. "So you've both been lying to me my whole life? Who even are you?"

"I'm still your mother. I'm still the person who loves you the most in this whole world." Lyra couldn't stop the tears from falling as she walked closer to him, wanting to hold him in her arms but he only took a step back, obviously not ready for that. "I'm sorry that I've lied to you but there's a very good explanation-"

"How can you ever explain how you would do this?" he asked, his breathing becoming quite shallow. "I just... I don't even know who you are anymore. How do I know that anything you've told me is the truth? How can I ever trust you again?"

Lyra took a deep breath, knowing she had to try to make him understand. And to make him understand, he had to know her story. "I fell in love with James Potter at Hogwarts. We had been rivals at one point, then he began chasing me around and we fell in love. We kept it a secret for a long time. I was going to tell the family. It didn't go very well. I'm sure you can imagine-"

Draco cut her off angrily. "No! No more vague answers. I want to know the truth!"

She huffed, feeling slightly annoyed at this but she understood. He needed to understand as well. "Fine. Your Aunt Bellatrix tortured me with an Unforgivable, saying she would kill him. And I loved him. I broke up with him to protect him, I kept everyone I loved outside of my family at an arm's length. Yes, including Remus Lupin, who was my best friend for a long time."

"And you didn't think you should mention this when he became my professor?" the blond boy asked. He couldn't deny that Remus Lupin had been a good teacher, despite his lycanthropy. Yet, he'd never mentioned her mother and she'd never mentioned him. He couldn't imagine them being so important to one another. "You've had plenty of opportunities-"

"I'm getting there, Draco," she said sternly. The more he'd interrupt her, the harder it would be to tell the story. "Your father asked me to marry him while I was still at Hogwarts. He offered to protect me, telling me I wouldn't have to become a Death Eater. I've told you what I was forced to do when he attempted to recruit me. He said he'd try to protect James. I agreed."

"And so we got married," she continued, her face stone cold. "I got pregnant with you. And I knew that I would do anything to protect you, Draco. I knew, from the moment I first saw you, that there is nothing in the world I could ever love more than I love you. And then James died, even though your father had told me he'd try to protect him. I was going to go the Ministry out your father as a willing Death Eater and as punishment for my insubordination... he made my favorite cousin go to Azkaban without a trial."

"Sirius," Draco stated. He could only assume that they had been much closer than he had ever known. 

If she had been in love with James Potter, who was known to have been best friends with Sirius, then it only made sense. No wonder she had been so heartbroken at the time he died. Draco had assumed she had only been so sad because Lucius was getting locked up. He was wrong. 

She nodded, a sad look on her face at the mention of his name. "Yeah."

"So you've never loved Father," he commented coolly. 

Of course, he'd had his suspicions for as long as he could remember. But if she had been willing to out him as a willing Death Eater, getting him thrown into Azkaban, then they must have loved each other even less than he'd thought. 

The look on his face broke Lyra's heart. "I have some love for your father, Draco, of course I do. I've been with him for so long, I can't imagine my life without him," "But that's not why I stayed with him. I stayed with him for you. I tried my best to create a family you would be happy in. And so I never told you anything about my past. I knew it would make you unhappy."

"Well, I'm unhappy now," he retorted, though he no longer looked like he was about to cry. He had gone cold, reminding her even more of Lucius and not in a good way. "It didn't do much good."

Those words pained her beyond belief, but she didn't know what to say other than to continue her story. "And I joined the Order of the Phoenix because I wanted to fight for a world where you could be safe, where you wouldn't have to be slave to a Dark Lord like your father was. It ruined him."

She sighed deeply as she looked at her boy, his eyes red and his skin so pale it was almost transparent. He hadn't been getting much sun lately. "I know your father far too well and I know that he could have been a good man if given the chance when he was young. But... the Death Eaters, the pureblood society, the Dark Lord... it ruined him. I didn't want it to ruin you, too."

Draco recoiled in hurt, a deep frown on his face. "You think I'm ruined?"

"No, no, of course not, love," Lyra said hurriedly. "But I want you to be safe. I don't know if I've ever told you this... but I had a cousin named Regulus, Sirius's brother. He joined the Death Eaters at the same age as you. And... something happened, I'm not even sure what. And he was killed. I don't want to lose you the same way I lost him."

"I'm not going to die," he said quietly, though his voice was shaking, as if he wasn't sure himself. He knew she was just trying to change the subject, to avoid hurting him more. "I don't know how this Regulus was but I'm not him! And Father's not dead, yet you still consider him ruined."

"I think that as long as you let yourself be controlled like this..." the blonde trailed off, trying to think of the best way to say what she meant. "I think your happiness will be ruined. And all I want for you is to be happy, I need you to believe that."

"Don't think I want me to be happy too? But... I can't be. I don't want to be controlled, but I have no choice. I failed in my task, I found out that everyone I love has been lying to me..." said Draco. And the tears returned, both to her and to him. "And I'm scared, all right? I'm just so scared."

A tear fell from Lyra's eye. And once the one fell, it was followed by so many she couldn't keep count. "Oh, Draco..."

Draco started sobbing, something she hadn't been him do since he was a little boy and was scared of the monsters in the dark. He was still scared of monsters, but they were different now. They were all around him, out in the light, and they could be anyone. Right one, his mother was one of them and he was frightened of whatever secrets she had the ability to keep. 

"How could you do this to me?" he asked, his voice breaking. 

Lyra walked up to him once again, and this time he didn't step back. She put her hands on either side of his face, forcing him to look at her. "You wouldn't have understood. And I'm sorry for that, maybe if I had been honest with you from the start... But I had hope that your father and I could make you happy."

"But I'm not."

"And I'm so sorry for that, I really am." She wiped the tears away from his cheeks, not bothering with her own. "I hope you can forgive me, Draco. I understand if you can't... And I understand that the world you know has shifted but I love you so much and all I want is to protect you. If you tell anyone... if you even tell your father about the Order then I know there's no protecting any of us."

"Mum..." he trailed off. He usually didn't call her that. It was one of the few times he had called her that since he was so short he didn't even reach her shoulders. She didn't know what brought this on after all she had done, but she wasn't complaining. "I don't know."

"Please," she begged. "I know you're angry, but I'm begging you to this one thing. You can hate me, you can yell at me as much as you want but I know that if this gets out then we're both dead. And my priority is you. It always will be."

He debated it for a moment and she could basically see the wheels in his turning, trying to figure out what to do. In the end, though he was angry and hurt and didn't know what to else to feel, he still loved his mother too much to betray her. "I won't tell. But... I don't know what else to say. I feel like I don't know you anymore."

That was a win, no matter how small. It meant she could mend their relationship, no matter how long it would take. "Then I'll let you get to know me. I want you to understand, but it's not very easy. I don't always understand what I've done myself. It's very complicated."

"Trust me, I know complicated by now," Draco said sharply. But his expression quickly softened afterwards as the tears continued falling so quickly she had no chance to wipe them away.  "I'm still angry and I don't know if I'll ever trust you again, but right now, just right now... I'm willing to ignore that because I just need my mother. I need you, Mum."

"And I'm here, Draco." Lyra pulled him into her arms and was delighted that he didn't pull away. He was taller than her now, by a lot. But he still leaned his chin on her shoulder, crying and letting himself need his mother for the first time in so long. "I'm always here, no matter what. And I'm so sorry."

Lyra could hold Draco in her arms for eternity and it would still not be enough. No matter the distance, the lies and deceit, no matter the Dark Mark on his arm and her past membership in the Order, he was still her little boy and she was still his mother. 

They had a long road to recovery, and she wasn't sure if Draco would ever truly trust her. She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't hidden things from him. It had become as natural as breathing to her after a while. Of course, there were still things she wanted to hide, but most of her secrets were out in the open. And his, the secrets of his failed mission, were too. 

Suddenly, they could hear loud footsteps outside the door. Lyra frowned and jumped, as did Draco. Their teary eyes exchanged wary glances, both of them reaching into their pockets to pull out their wands. Lyra was thankful that Draco was of age now, so he could fight if need be, so she wouldn't be alone if someone was coming to punish them. 

Then the door opened and Lyra felt herself gape in shock. She hadn't expected to see him come in years, she hadn't seen him in long anyway. She had been so accustomed to life without him, though there was an obvious piece missing that she had tried to fill. 

But Lucius Malfoy stood there, looking thinner than his son if that was even possible. He looked like he hadn't seen the sun in years, though that was almost true. He had been locked in a jail cell for a year by now. He looked tired, weak and frail. It was a not the way Lyra could remember him. She always saw him as strong, though sometimes too strong. This was not the man who had sworn to protect them. No, this was the ruined man she'd spoken of earlier. 

"Lucius..." she trailed off, a million thoughts in her head. Draco, James, Dumbledore, Snape, Rabastan. Especially Rabastan. What the hell was she going to do about Rabastan if Lucius was back?

Then she realized that Rabastan had probably just broken Lucius out. That was the mission with the Dark Lord he had spoken of. But she had no idea why he would agree to such a mission when he could have asked to go to Hogwarts. He didn't like Lucius, and especially not the fact that he was Lyra's husband. He still believed he loved her, despite everything. It didn't make sense. 

"Father," Draco breathed, in shock. He also seemed surprised to see how far his childhood hero had fallen. He knew he probably wouldn't look his best once he got out of Azkaban, but it was beyond what he had imagined. This was a broken shell of a man. 

"Lyra, Draco," he greeted his family, his voice raspy and deeper than either of them remember. He must not have spoken much in a long time. He looked at both their faces, studying them with a clenched jaw. "So, what did I miss?"

Lyra looked at her husband, her make-up ruined and her eyes red from all the tears, and sighed deeply. Whatever was coming, whatever had led Voldemort to break him out, couldn't be good. And right now, she couldn't really afford for things not to be good anymore. 

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A/N: Fun fact: this chapter and the next were actually supposed to be just one chapter. But I wanted to get this out and not to be super long (and it would have been super long). Also, I like the dramatic ending. You guys know I love my drama <3 But I do know you'll probably love the next chapter, considering who's going to be in it.