The Sovereign Of Purity

Draco curled up next to the hedge, and sobbed softly to himself. Where were mother and father? He was confused and scared, and he watched, bleary eyed, as many tall people walked past him, not even noticing the lost little boy sulking on the ground.

A girl about his age with dark hair suddenly walked up to him and bent over to peer into his eyes.

"Hello," said the strange new girl, "Why are you crying?" The girl cocked her head to one side and looked at Draco questioningly.

Draco hesitated. "I've lost my mother and father," he choked out into his knee, which he had buried his face into.

The girl looked at him oddly. "Oh. Well, I hate seeing boys cry." She smiled merrily and took one of her hands out from behind her back. Held gingerly in her hand so that the thorns would not prick her, was a rose. She held it out to Draco.

"Here you go, be careful, you don't want to prick your self on the thorns."

Draco stared at the girl. A complete stranger, much less, a girl had never given him anything. He took the rose, careful not to prick himself.

"Thank you," he managed to say. The girl's smile widened, and her dark eyes sparkled.

"You're welcome," she chirped. Then, to Draco's surprise, she gracefully placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. She drew back and looked at Draco's cheek.

"Look! I've made a little heart on your cheek!" The girl laughed. Indeed, there was a faint outline of a heart on Draco's cheek. Of course, they were too young to know how extraordinary the little heart-shaped scar was.

Draco looked at the dark haired girl laughing, and felt strange, as if there were butterflies in his head trying to get out, and he began to feel knots form in his stomach. He started to laugh too.

The wonderful feeling that had come over him was soon over. The girl stopped laughing and looked over her shoulder. Her face fell.

"I have to go, my mommy and daddy are over there," she pointed towards a flowerbed where a worried looking couple was standing, "Maybe I'll see you again someday." She smiled and Draco felt his heart melt. He nodded.

Draco watched the girl run off to the couple. Their faces lit up as they saw her, and she jumped into the man's arms. The man spun her around and she threw her head back and laughed, as the woman laughed too. When the man stopped spinning her around, the girl talked excitedly and pointed over to where Draco sat huddled on the ground. The man looked over to Draco and smiled. Draco immediately sat up. Then the man's face dropped and his eyes looked off to the side of Draco.

Draco looked up to where the man's eyes rested and saw his father.

His father looked down at him and frowned. Draco scrambled up to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man whisper something into the girl's ear before they started to head for the park exit. Draco looked up into his father's face. His eyes were stern, and he looked at Draco as if he had just done a terrible crime.

"Come Draco," he said through clenched teeth. He firmly put his hand on Draco's shoulder and began to lead him to the opposite park exit that the girl and her family had gone through.

Draco fingered the heart scar with one hand, and still clenched the rose in the other hand. He opened his fingers and looked down at his palm, where some of the rose's thorns had pierced his skin. Scarlet blood had begun to come through the wounds. The red spots stood out violently against his pale skin.

He closed his hand back around the rose and looked up to see his mother standing at the park exit tapping her foot impatiently and scowling. Draco's parents said nothing to him, but his father whispered something into his mother's ear that made her face go pale. They quickly glanced at Draco, then started putting invisibility charms on the broomsticks that would carry them home. When they were done, Draco mounted behind his father on his father's broom. They took off on the long way to Malfoy Mansion.

All the way home, Draco was deep in thought. He kept thinking about the girl. He remembered her parent's happy faces when they had seen her. Then he remembered his parent's scowls and their suspicious whispers to each other.