the_debt_of_time

Draco glared back at Ron and stood. "For the record, weasel, I didn't fucking ask
her for anything, and my business is none of yours."
"Ron, get out," Mia said, her words final, her tone cold and calm.
"You're really picking him over me?" Ron gaped at her in shock. "After everything
he did? I don't care if he was a bloody spy, or so he says, he watched you get tortured in
his own house and didn't lift a finger to do a thing until it was his own mother who was
threatened!"
Draco reached for his wand, but Mia stayed his hand.
"We can't all be Harry Potter and save everyone," she said quietly. "Do you know
what it's like to stand back and watch someone else die, knowing you had to make a choice
to do nothing? Draco made a choice. We all make choices."
Draco had chosen to finally break his cover and kill Lucius in defence of Narcissa.
It had taken the threat to his own mother for him to finally snap, and Mia did not hold it
against him that he did not break for her sake. Just like Draco, Mia knew that she had once
made a choice: to stand back and watch, knowing that James and Lily would die if she did
nothing to stop it. But Mia had made the choice—she had chosen Harry.
"He's got a history of making some pretty fucked up choices." Ron glared at Draco.
"I can't believe you're choosing to be friends with the likes of him."
"I'm not choosing to be friends with him, I'm choosing to acknowledge him as
family."
"He's a Slytherin!"
"So was my mother!"
"Not your real mother.. ." Ron started to say, rolling his eyes, but then he caught
up to his words and winced.
Unlike the Hermione he knew, she did not huff and stomp her heel like she always
had when he stuck his foot in his mouth. Mia did not yell or storm away from him and cry
until he had the opportunity to come and mumble out an apology.
She just looked at him with an expressionless glance as though they were strangers.
He felt like a stranger.
"I grieved you, you know," she said softly. "When I didn't know if I'd ever make it
back here, I grieved for the loss of our friendship. I was so sad. But then Sirius would say
something funny, and Remus would smile at me, and Jamie would wrap me in a great big