PROLOGUE
August 28, 1989 – The Leaky Cauldron, London
In the week before their eighth birthday, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, a hooded figure came to visit the little shack where the twins lived.
It was a warm night at the inn, and the old pile of stone that had served the hunchback Tom's family as home for thirteen generations bore that cooled-sweat feeling it acquired before a change in the weather.
The figure was let in by the side door down the vaulted passage by the twins' room and he was allowed to peer in at them where they lay in their beds. The sound of a cane tapping the wooden floor resuscitated the boy from his early sleep. The face of the girl, a few metres beside her brother, was hidden by the shadows. A shallow, even breath that can only be produced by children rose from her narrow chest. Long, white blond hair fanned out over thick pillows.
By the half-light of an oil lamp, dimmed and hanging near the floor, the awakened boy could see a tall male shape at his door, standing one step ahead of their mother, and a third; a plump woman with wide and bushy hair he couldn't place in the darkness.
The hooded figure was a wizard shadow –hair matted and crusted by the sweaty air, grey eyes like glittering jewels. He knew this form, witnessed him with his eyes each year before casting the memory into oblivion once more. Just as the boy thought he had forgotten what his father looked like, he would find passage to his son and daughter again; run his pale hand through their hair; whisper restrained words of sad comfort.
"Is he not small for his age, Mary?" the man pronounced in his haughty tongue, a little sharp on the consonants. The boy sighed. He had not been mistaken. It was him. His voice articulated and hissed like a finely tuned spine.
The twins' mother answered: "The Malfoy family are known to start late getting their growth. You, of all people, should know, Lucius."
Her tone was humble, yet Lucius paid no attention. He pulled his hood back with two hands and the light of his eerily pale hair, so very much resembling the twins' hair, flooded the room with a strange metallic warmth.
"Ah yes," Lucius took one step ahead and inspected Milan's bed from a distance, cocking his head to the side as if expecting to hear a sound. "But my daughter is taller, is she not?"
"Yes, milord" their mother answered numbly.
"Milan is awake and listening to us," said the old woman.
"Sly little rascal" Lucius stated as if it were a simple fact.
The amusement was clearly audible in his voice, and it vibrated through the chamber, cupped Milan's heart and squeezed it reassuringly.
"-But true royalty is in need of slyness. I know they are true royalty. It's all in the mind."
Behind his back, the two women shared a rueful look.
Within the shadows of his bed, Milan held his eyes open to mere slits. Two bird-bright ovals –the eyes of his father –seemed to expand and glow as they stared into his.
"Sleep well, you sly little rascal," his father said.
"Leave us alone for a moment, will you?" he added coldly to their mother, without turning.
Milan could hear the scraping sound of a door closing, of muffled footsteps retreating into the corridor. She always obeyed him without a word, and he didn't know why. Then again, there were a lot of things he didn't know about his father. He would come and go at unorthodox nocturnal times, pass his rich, velvet clad hands over their faces, leaving only so much as the scent of a fading perfume in his wake. It would haunt their little room for days, or Milan fancied it as such.
Their mother had told the twins never to speak of him, to anyone. They had many enemies.
"Your father has left long ago, remember" she had told them when they were barely old enough to comprehend the meaning of a secret. She had gathered their distressed little faces in her plain dress, placated the softly sniffing Sansa. Then she had raised herself to her infinite full height, smiled down at them between the curls of her unkempt black hair, and left with a stack of plates in her arms, called by a few customers who were lying over the tables, small bubbles of spit and wine forming at the corners of their mouth. That type of customers always whined a lot, Milan knew.
"Now, my child."
His father kneeled beside his bed, his cape in the gleaming sheen of dust, and stretched out his arm. Even though his own eyes were veiled by his lashes, Milan could see strands of long light hair, blurred as branches from an exotic tree, brushing his face. He leaned into the touch as a handsome face pressed itself into the crook of his neck, and wrapped his little arms around the giant's neck. The old woman still stood in the doorframe, the ceiling lamp in the corridor giving her hair a reddish hue. Milan closed his eyes and let himself be held.
In retrospect, Milan never knew how long this intimate moment lasted. He cherished it like a long lost fragrance, afraid to let go. The soft breathing of the man, buried in his neck. The tenderness with which his own fine hair was stroked back to reveal his face, the gloved fingertips on his bony collarbones. He smelled like adult and like riches, like worlds the boy could never come to know.
"Politics, little one. If only you were my heir."
It was a whisper on the candles, the only sound apart from both their slow respiration. No sound was heard from his sister's bed. Ringed fingers stroked his cheeks, and he clasped his own around them.
"Father," he spoke sleepily, finally. "Malfoy."
The moment broke like thin ice, as fast and unannounced as it had come. The large frame in his arms froze.
"So you were awake then, you little serpent. Never. Speak. My. Name."
The tone was urgent this time, devoid of his father's lazy drawl.
Only once had Milan seen his father's wand before, in one of his earliest memories. It had been ripped out of his cane then, struck a house elf staggering in his way.
"I don't want you to see this."
The elf had fallen to the floor unmovingly, and after dawn had broken and their father had gone the twins and their mother had buried it in the Leaky Cauldron's yard. Milan had forgotten about the details, as he seemed to forget a lot of things. But Sansa had run around the inn for days, reciting it like a hymn when they were only in the company of each other. Avada. Avada. Avada. Over and over and over again, the only word she knew. Mother had beaten her loads of times. Then she had been silent once more, forgetful like her brother. She had learnt other words and hadn't been beaten for them, words with another air, English words. She used them still.
This time Milan heard a swift click and his father's black wand towered above him.
"Obliviate" his father spoke in a hushed tone.
He hugged Milan once more, apologetically. There was the sound of a clash of coins and wood, and his warm presence moved over to his sister's bed.
Milan fell asleep to dream of a great mansion, silent people all around him moving in the dim light of torches. It was solemn in the mansion as he listened to a faint sound –the drip-drip-drip of water. And there was another boy beside him, slightly older than himself; a sharp-featured pale boy, looking every inch like Milan apart from his eyes. Those eyes were father's eyes.
Even while he remained in the dream, Milan knew he would remember it upon awakening. He always remembered those fragmented dreams that were predictions.
The dream faded.
Milan half awoke to feel himself in the warmth of his bed, heard his sister's clear voice pipe up excitedly against father's. He was still there, he was there and Milan lay thinking about his father's name. Their surname. He knew, he should have remembered. But he didn't, not anymore, and only a few minutes had passed. Over and over within Milan's floating awareness the disillusion rolled.
When sunrise touched Milan's window sill with yellow light, he sensed it through closed eyelids, opened them, hearing then the renewed bustle and hurry in the tavern and the chirping of the birds on the branches outside, seeing the familiar patterned beams of their bedroom ceiling.
Father had been here.
He groped around himself, supporting himself with his arms on the mattress. The room was empty save for Sansa's still, sleeping lithe form under the covers.
Once more, Milan found himself wondering if he had dreamt father's visit against the background of a crumbling little room, various toys thrown helter skelter around the beds, the confronting sunlight. Then he glanced over to his bedside table and a smile touched the corners of his lips as he saw the satin purse that sat there. Tearing the delicate strings apart with his fingers, he held one of the galleons up to the light.
"Sansa!" he yelled as he sprang up from the bed and approached his sister's side, dangling the sack of coins from his hand.
"Sansa, look what father brought us! We have money!"
He shook her shoulder gently but she didn't stir. He pouted and sighed. With a wicked smirk on his face, he tore the covers away from her.
Sansa's eyes looked into his, as if demanding him an answer. They were doll's eyes. Her brow was tense and her mouth slightly open in the innocent relaxation of someone who has just awoken from sleep. The halo of her pale hair surrounded her white face, and she just lay there, never registering what her brother said to her.
"Sansa?"
But his sister didn't stir.
(A/N: A big, fat thank you to Frank Herbert. Small excerpts of this prologue taken from his 1965 novel Dune.)