Restricted | Draco Malfoy

30

"Are you sure you want to do this?" My mother asked me with an unsure gaze. She looked at my reflection in the mirror as she held the shears in her hand. She was hesitant, and wasn't so sure that she wanted to make the first cut. I nodded my head in response because after begging for this for days, I wished she'd just get it over with.

"I need some change, mother. I think you know that as well as I do." I huffed while I stared back at her. She let out a slight groan as she picked up a section of my long hair and slipped it between the blades.

"I understand that you're going through some stuff, but this just seems a bit drastic. I'm afraid you'll regret it, because trust me when I say that we all look back on our teenage rebellion chops and regret it" She tried talking me out of it. I think that she was going to regret doing it more than I was. I could've cared less. It'll grow back.

"No. Just do it." I sighed, shaking my head slightly. "I think it'll make me feel a little better. I just want something to be different." I admitted and gave her a pleading look. I knew she could never say no to that.

She slowly cut the hair off of my head. 8 inches worth. The chop took my hair from my mid back to almost shoulder length, falling just below it. I looked older almost instantly, and a grin started creeping to my lips as i watched. The cut matured me physically, just like my attitude and personality had already done within recent weeks following certain events.

I needed to change. To be new. To be someone else.

"I love it." I smiled when she was done, causing my mother to wrap her arms around my shoulders from the back. She rested her chin on top of my head with a soft smile on her red lips.

"Do you think we can color it now?" I asked.

Okay, maybe I was a bit too eager to completely change myself. I wanted this to be a fresh start. I needed to take matters into my own hands— to take my life into my own hands for once. I wanted to be in control of what I did and what happens to me because I was growing tired of everyone else always having the final say in my decisions.

"Yes, my dear." She smiled back at me in the mirror. "Whatever makes you happy." She smoothed out the hair on top of my head as she spoke to me in a gentle tone.

"You make me happy, mum." I told her in a soft voice. For the first time in what felt like centuries, I had meant it.

Things had never been like this at home before. I felt loved for once... and cared for. My parents talked to me every day, and didn't make me feel invisible. We had no secrets with one another anymore because I was in the loop. This was all I had ever wanted. I had gotten to spend every single day with them for the last month, and not having to confide in the portraits of their past to give me the time of day. I wasn't sure how long this treatment would continue, but I was embracing it now while I still could.

Things were going so well in my life for how shitty my luck tended to be. Part of that issue was that I just hoped things weren't going a little too well.

My mother finished stroking her wand over the layers of my hair to lighten the color of it by a few shades. I sat there for about 20 minutes as I waited, reading through the latest addition of the Daily Prophet to pass the time. I chuckled at the articles in it and the accusations that they were making. Almost every one called Potter a liar for his claims about the Dark Lord.

Bunch of bologna.

I know he isn't lying. Did I see the Dark Lord for myself yet? No. And I didn't plan on doing that for as long as I was living and breathing, but my mother and father had already discussed the current events with me so I could understand what was at stake for our family. I knew the truth for once, and didn't have to rely on someone else to fill in the gaps for me.