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Draco Malfoy sat with rigidly fixed posture, lips drawn tightly pursed, as one of his less-talented students, Christy Mcnair, made the third mistake on the etude they had been working on for over a month.
“That’s enough,” Draco said, words excluding the frustration and disappointment he felt. “You will go down to a quiet practice room and won’t come back up until you have this etude perfect. I will contact your mother about your failure to follow my instructions and will let her know that you will not be flooing to her house until you have passed this etude.”
“Yes Professor Malfoy sir” Christy said, promptly swishing out of the room heading towards the practice spaces Draco had invested in for students who wouldn’t practice unless forced to.
Draco, true to his word, raised his wand and produced a Patronous letting Mrs.Mcnair know that her daughter would not be home for a while. Thinking about how he probably wouldn’t even need to send any indication about Christy to Mrs.Mcnair as she seems to care about her daughter as much as Centaurs care for interacting with humans, he began to spiral into the days at hogwarts when he would get updates from his pureblooded friends about their own parents. Pansy Parkinson once told Draco that her parents were always away and she had been raised by the house elves. Gregory Goyle’s parents lived together but fought constantly and treated him like dung.
It’s funny how the purebloods make such a big deal about continuing their bloodline but virtually take no care about their children’s growth. Draco heard far too many stories much like Goyle’s parents who only got together to preserve the pureblood line and loathed each other.
Honestly, compared to most, Draco had gotten lucky in the parent department. His parents were never openly affectionate but he knew they cared for him, well, at least his mom cared for him. He could never be sure if his father loved him or not. Draco often wondered about how if Lucius had not cared for his mother so much, how awful his life could have been.
At Hogwarts, he depended on his father’s name and status to prove his worth but in reality, Lucius often was much less of a listener than Draco let others think. His phrase of “my father will hear about this” only really came true in Draco’s third year when Lucius thought that that grievance could get Hagrid fired and improve his own status with a certain Walden Macnair.
Kinda funny how now Draco is now the piano teacher of that death-eaters’s daughter.
But anyway, Lucius’s views and manipulative ways had strongly impacted how Draco acted during his years at Hogwarts. Looking back, most of the insults he spewed at Potter and his friends, were just slightly reworded versions of what he heard his father say. He doubts that he would have thought of Granger, well, now she is Granger-Weasley, as just a Mud-Blood had his father not made that a conversation starter every meal they had.
She had been a fierce politician after the Battle of Hogwarts and Draco admired her for her use of studies and factual dissections to ensure success winning complex cases. There was never a cause she took up that didn’t get resolved. Take the probation for people imperiouzed and forced to do Voldemort’s bidding, before Granger-Weasley fought those laws, those who were imperiouzed by Voldemort would have to give themselves up for testing in the department of myseries and be obliviated afterwards, until Granger-Weasley took up the obstruction of justice to Wizengamot and now those who were imperiouzed must only see a mind-healer and assist with a family (who would be a good pairing) recovering from the war.
It was almost the 14th year anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts/the defeat of Voldemort. Draco typically didn’t think about all the lives lost and pain caused when he was fighting on the wrong-side of the war, it just hurt too much to think about, but every year around the end of April, Draco started the guilt streaked thoughts of his decisions throughout the war.
“Professor Malfoy?” Christy's voice rang out distracting Draco from his shame-spiral that always happened around this time
“You have finished the etude” Draco turned his attention to the black haired girl. “Sit down at this piano and I will judge if you can go home”
Christy took long strides over to the piano, placed her music on the ledge, and sat with the straightest posture Draco had ever seen her demonstrate.
There was only one mistake that she made that was so small Draco decided that lightening up on his expectations was a good thing and sent her home. He opened one of his own piano books, a pops tune book - yes it’s not classical but frankly, after listening to etudes and other various pieces all day, there is no shame in popping open a Celestina Warbeck’s Best Hits book, well, there is a little bit of shame but Draco has long since decided the shame doesn’t matter when he is just by himself.
His fingers floated perfectly on the silvery merskin keys (it had cost him a fortune to get), and the piano let the sounds of You Charmed My Heart Right Out of Me float through the room.
Draco was so enthralled by his own playing that he almost didn’t notice a fat barn owl knocking on his window. On the second tap, he forced himself to stop playing and attend to the business call.
Draco flung the window open, the bird flew in, and shook off the letter attached to its leg.
Draco promptly picked it up and gracefully pulled off the sealed wax. He read,
“Dear Draco Malfoy,
I am in desperate need for a strict piano teacher as my son has successfully driven away all his past teachers. I have heard from colleagues of mine that you are the best person to go to and although I have doubts, I trust their judgement and am writing to ask if you will take on my son, James Potter, to be one of your students. I would never reach out to you if I didn’t fully believe that you’ve changed from our years at Hogwarts and even then will never put my full trust in you. Please write back soon with your decision.
Sincerely,
Ginerva Weasley”
Draco leaned back in his chair and read through the letter again.
Weasley and Potter had divorced seven years ago (it was all over the Profit) and he wondered if Potter knew that his ex-wife was reaching out to an ex-death eater to teach his son.
Regardless, Draco knew business and decided that however awkward the interactions between James’s parents and him would be, the thrill of getting a child to love piano after all other teachers failed brought him enough joy to make it worth it.
He wrote back stateing that he would take on James Potter and that he would never imagine to ask forgiveness as the pain and suffering that he had caused the Weasleys was unforgivable and that for what it is worth, he is deeply sorry and there isn’t a day that goes by that he doesn’t regret his actions throughtout his Hogwarts years and during the war.
The barn owl, noticing Draco seal the envelope and address it back to Ginerva Weasley, flew to Draco and let him attatch the letter to its leg.
Once the letter was secure, the barn owl stretched its wings and glided out of the window into the dusk, across the landscape until Draco could see it no more.
Draco stood staring at the path the owl had flown for a long while, watching the sun go down and reminising on his early Hogwarts days, regretting the things he had done to get Potter’s attention.
oOo
“And I told her that I would do it!” Draco cried, having flooed Blaise Zambini when he snapped back into reality once the moon had gleaned at the top of the sky.
“Well, you can’t take the letter back now so it does no good to whine” Blaise stated.
“You know very well that regardless of if it was my fault I’ll whine and make the lives of everyone around me miserable” Draco whined back and Blaise chuckled
“Yeah, somethings never change” Draco stuck out his bottom lip and pouted, “Well, at least you’re self aware now. I remember back at Hogwarts when you slipped down the dugeon floor and cried in the hospital wing until Madam Pomfrey forced you to leave. You were compaining about her treatment of you for weeks and refused to believe that it was your fault for acting like a total wimp in the first place”
“Wow, Blaise, you really know how to cheer a lad up” Draco responded blandly
“Aw come on Draco, if you wanted comfort, you would have called Pansy” Blaise retorted and brushed his hair out of his face. “My knees are getting sore so I’m going to go back to my wonderful bed. Call me again if you need but only if it’s a true necesity. -One doesn’t get this pretty without plenty of beauty sleep-”
Draco smirked and nodded goodbye, hearing the pop of Blaise’s head vanishing from the fireplace.
For another hour or so, Draco started into the fireplace wondering how in the world a Weasley would reach out to him asking him to give lessons to their child. He had been so awful to their family throughout Hogwarts he never would have fathomed one of them reaching out to him for anything.
Regardless, Ginerva Weasley (how formal) had reached out to him and he wasn’t about to deny a chance to make more money as his current only pay check came from his limited pool of lesson kids and occasional piano gigs at muggle shops. (Yes, Draco had to learn how to use muggle money in a rather dry spell of lessons and a lack of job opportunities for someone marked like him).
Most of his lesson kids came from very pureblooded familys who believed that the Malfoy name meant something. Draco had given up on his Malfoy pride when Voldemort was living in the Manor and had reduced his father to a