Not mine.
--
Ara was picking flowers with ruthless delight, and Draco couldn't help but imagine his mother's reaction if she could see the state of her peonies. The blossoms were almost as large as the toddler's blonde head, and pulling them out was an exercise in determination and strength. She had forgone the thin-stemmed daisies an hour ago.
Draco watched her from above, his face devoid of emotion, though his left eyebrow was slightly higher than the right and one corner of his mouth had curved up ever so slightly in what the casual observer might have decided was the beginning of a smirk.
Ara yanked a particularly stubborn blossom and fell backwards, the petals raining down over her as she landed with a thump. Giggling uncontrollably, she glanced up at Draco to see if she shared in her mirth. He gave her a half smile and set her back upright.
Her laugh was too much like her mother's. Even the baby version, higher and bubbly, sounded uncannily like the giggle of the woman that he had loved, and it still cracked his heart every time he heard it. Her mother had laughed like that after the first awkward kiss. He could still remember the feeling of her lips on his, the look in her eyes as she pulled back shyly and bit her lip, and the sound of her childlike giggle. The setting sun had caught the red color in her hair and set it on fire, and the color was echoed in the clouds and across the still waters of the lake. Ara's hair was platinum in the bright sunlight, and Draco wished for the hundredth time that the Malfoy traits were not so strong.
The glee in Ara's amber eyes was also too familiar for comfort. The tiny amber windows into her small little soul held a great deal of merriment mixed with just the right amount of hope. She turned them back to the task at hand and found a large white peony to yank. Her fierce ambition to collect every blossom in the flowerbed was also reminiscent of her mother, and those were not such pleasant recollections. Draco absentmindedly grabbed a rose and began slowly stripping it of its petals as he watched her, his face still a careful mask.
He had never wanted children, and that had been the beginning of the end.
She'd raged with him over it for months. They'd gone back and forth, her claiming he needed the heir and that she needed something to do, and him retorting that he would not bring a child into a world so devastated by war. To which she would reply that the world needed a few more shreds of hope, to which he would reply that shreds of hope were hard to come by for a child raised in strife, and wouldn't he know.
Then she'd glare daggers at him and storm away.
He had known even then that it wasn't really about the baby. This was about making them real. She wanted to be settled and normal again, and he felt like he couldn't go on. She wanted to feel the sun and not fear jets of green light and he wanted to keep her safe and out of the enemy's eye. If a public marriage was out of the question, a baby was ridiculous.
Ara was still yanking the large peony, a huge white blossom that matched the ridiculous designer play clothes in which the nannies had dressed her. She fell again, this time landing on all fours in the dirt. One of the nannies would probably try to upbraid him for letting her get so filthy, and Draco rolled his eyes at the imaginary scolding. Not that he cared. Still, he lifted Ara from the soil and into his arms. She protested mightily, kicking his waist with her bare toes. He was unmoved. Ara realized that her temper held no sway here and was placated by the remains of the crumpled rose in Draco's hand, which she calmly began to rip apart, tearing the petals away from the bud one at a time and tossing them to the wind.
Her mother had performed a similar operation on Draco's heart. She'd come to him in his study, triumphant and glowing, and informed him that she was pregnant. He was stunned, and though he hid his fear, he felt a strange happiness and an almost foreign sense of pride, until he noticed that the hand rubbing the small bump on her belly was missing the ring he'd given her just a month prior.
The next time he had seen her, she was on the arm of his rival, a man whose gloating smirk nearly sent Draco over the edge. He cornered her toward the end of the party, demanding to know what she thought she was doing. She replied that she was settling in nicely, quite happy to be at a secure place in life, complete with a caring, doting lover and a hopeful baby on the way.
The toddler in his arms was babbling at him. She must have sensed his distraction for she placed a tiny hand on his cheek and turned his face to hers. He admired the crumpled petals she showed him, and she threw them up into the air so that they rained down around them, and she threw back her head and squealed with delight.
Watching Ara, he knew he had been wrong about children and strife. Ara was a bringer of hope, and yet every time he got up the courage to borrow her from her nannies and governesses for the afternoon, he felt more lost than ever before. She pointed persistently at another rosebud and Draco picked it for her, sliding the thorns off with his thumbnail before handing it to the little girl.
The white roses reminded him of the wedding he'd had no choice but to attend. Ginevra was stunning in a white gown that carefully hid the pregnancy, and when he'd caught her in the changing room to demand that she reconsider, her radiance caught him so off guard that he was momentarily speechless. Then he had demanded that she marry him. She told him that she was in love. Had been in love for some time.
Then she slowly informed him that the child was not his, but her fiancés. He didn't believe her, but as she methodically expunged the details of the affair, he couldn't deny the logic. The baby was not his own, and neither was its mother.
He'd moved out of the Manor while they were honeymooning, determined never to see them again. He'd gone so far as to begin pulling stock out of the family wealth to set up a household abroad. Then he had gotten the invitation to come back to the Manor, to meet the small child, and despite his determination to do the contrary, he found himself at Ginevra's bedside, holding a small, wrinkly baby, marveling at his newest relative.
Ara quieted and dropped her fair head onto Draco's shoulder. The torn petals slipped from her hands as she pushed her small nose into his neck. Draco sighed and smoothed her wavy locks with his free hand, gently swaying from side to side. She smelled like sunlight and grass, with hints of vanilla and baby. He hefted her higher onto his shoulder, careful not to wake her. She wiggled involuntarily in her sleep, snuggling her face into his neck, their identical hair mingling behind his ear. He walked back up to Malfoy Manor, readying himself to hand the small princess into the waiting arms of her father.
Slowly, he circled the decapitated flowerbed, marveling at the devastation someone so small could cause in such a brief amount of time.
--
Thoughts?
Ara: The altar constellation, named for the altar of Lycaon, who in Greek mythology used it to sacrifice a child to gain favor from Zeus, but was instead turned into a wolf. If it is at all redeeming, I like to think that Ginny chose the name.