18

                                    

                                          

"Draven, my boy!" Sirius Black greeted the son of his cousin as he hugged him tightly when he arrived at his house at 12 Grimmauld Place. He treated him as a family even though the Malfoys hated him because of being friends with the half-bloods, muggles, and blood traitors. 

Even his family disowned him, but Draven never treated him like a nobody. He always wrote him letters while he was a kid even if Lucius told them not to. Their relationship grew and treated each other as their blood. 

"Uncle Sirius!" Draven embraced him back. "Thanks for having me again here in your humble home."

"My home is also your home, Draven. Remember that." Sirius smiled at the Malfoy boy. He may resemble his father a bit, but he was far more different than him. "But don't me get wrong in asking this, why did you not come home to your family?"

"I..." Draven paused for a while and went on sitting down on the couch. "I just don't want to see Father, that's all." 

"You didn't reply to his letters, haven't you?" Sirius asked him and sat down beside him. 

"I always throw them or burn them at the fireplace way back at the common room." The white-blonde boy chuckled softly. "And for sure, he would just pressure me to do the things I don't want."

Sirius knew the feeling of forcing to do unwanted things by their family. He was once like that, and the other reason why he seemed to get close to this particular Malfoy is that he sees his younger self in him.

"Well, if that's the case... Then you are always welcome here in my home, Draven. Treat this as your own too." Sirius said to him and patted his shoulder. "Come on, I prepared something for you. For sure you're hungry." 

"Yeah, I am." The Malfoy boy touched his stomach. "There, it's grumbling a lot." 

"You're telling me that you now have a girlfriend?" Sirius couldn't believe what Draven just told him. "And it's Hermione? That smart girl? Really?"

"I am dead serious, Sirius." Draven couldn't help but slide the joke and Sirius just laughed. 

"But I'm not dead, Draven." Sirius then rode with his joke. "I am happy for you, Draven. And it's also my first time to know a Gryffindor-Slytherin couple." 

"And well, that's one reason why I also don't want to go home. If Father hears about this, then he'll beat the crap out of me again." Draven slipped out of him, and that made Sirius look at him.

"Again? Lucius is hurting you? Since when?" He asked the Malfoy boy with concern in his tone. 

"Since..." Draven never wanted for him to know to be honest. It's just between his mother and twin about Lucius torturing him. "...I was 13 years old."

Sirius felt furious knowing that Lucius was abusing this young boy. "How does he hurt you?"

Draven looked at him, and it seems like there was no point in lying then. "Hitting me with his trusty cane, then with his whip as well, then the Cruciatus curse."