PROLOGUE
Disclaimer: Anything recognizable belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Pansy Malfoy was worried. Her daughter, Phaedra, was to turn eleven in a few short days and her birthday was sure to bring with it her official acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and the world was not the same as the one she grew up in. The purity of blood and great respect for those who possessed it was slowly becoming a thing of the past, some had begun to go so far as to single out and isolate those of pure blood status. She had voiced this concern, among others, with her husband. They had been having variations of the same conversation for some months now.
"But Draco, she is so small, can't we make an appointment with the Headmaster and ask to defer her enrollment for another year?" Pansy pleaded cornering Draco in the dining room after breakfast.
"Holding her back a year would do her a great disservice," Draco answered. "She would be seen as weak from the word go. If she is to have any chance at all of being taken seriously she needs to start school at eleven, and, concern for her well-being aside, she is a Malfoy and you give her far less credit than she deserves. Do you not know your daughter at all?"
Pansy contemplated his words, trying to think of a carefully worded rebuttal. He was right, unfortunately, on all accounts. She remembered exactly how malicious children could be, having been on the bullying side of things often as a child. He was also painfully right, although she would never admit it aloud, about how well she knew Phaedra.
From infancy Phaedra had shown a pronounced preference for her father, physically and emotionally. She had the same white blonde hair, pale skin, grey eyes, and pointed face of Draco. She walked like her father, perfectly postured with short, leisurely strides and an air of self-importance, as if to say the world would wait for her if it knew what was good for it.
She talked like him too, mimicking not only his intonation but his sentiments that the Malfoy name still meant something and that in his home his word was law. She could also be as bitingly cruel and sarcastic, with a talent for saying the one thing that could make Pansy question her abilities as a mother and role model for her child.
There were areas where Phaedra greatly differed from her father. Draco conducted himself with a casual elegance in social situations, letting his demeanor speak of his importance in the wizarding community he didn't have to try hard to gain the respect of those in his company. Phaedra had none of Draco's social graces. She was arrogant and tried to impress others by talking up her heritage and talking down the heritage of anyone she thought inferior.
Draco also had the capacity for great love and warmth. If Draco thought no one was paying attention he would smile warmly at his wife and take her hand, maybe giving her a quick peck on the cheek. In their private moments he would hold her lovingly and whisper sweetly to her all the reasons he had taken to her, even as a child, and tell her how much he loved her.
Phaedra had become a cold child, at least toward her mother. Pansy couldn't quite trace her memory back to the advent of this behavior, but she found it troubling. Phaedra did not appreciate the hugs and kisses that had been part of the relationship Pansy had shared with her mother as a child. Pansy took Phaedra's lack of social graces and indifferent demeanor as a sign of emotional immaturity and of yet another reason the girl should be kept from school another year.
Pansy had yet to respond to her husband's question and possibly taking her silence for acquiescence, Draco spoke once again. "This is the last we will debate this, Pansy," he said sternly, kissing her on the cheek and walking out of the room.
Phaedra sat, very still and very quietly, behind a large decorative urn in the hallway outside the dining room. She had heard every bit of her parent's conversation. Mother will never see me as anything other than weak, Phaedra thought bitterly. That is, unless I can prove to her that I am not.