A/N: I've been wanting to use this song for a fic for soo long it's ridiculous and, finally, HBP gave me the inspiration I needed ^_^ The fic is unfinished and will be uploaded 2 minis to a chapter :) The song is 'Winter' by Tori Amos
In Memory of What Once Was.
By Esme Symes-Smith
~ LadyLilyMalfoy ~
Snow can wait
I forgot my mittens
Wipe my nose
Get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart
When I think of winter
I put my hand in my father's glove
I run off
Where the drifts get deeper
Sleeping beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice
"Your must learn to stand up for yourself
Cause I can't always be around"
~*~*~*~
Draco's Eyes-
It was his eyes, she had noticed, that had changed more than anything. His posture was still flawless, his features still proud, but his eyes…
Not quite as hard as his father's not as soft as hers, Draco's were a delicate composition of silver and cyan and truly his own. Whilst Draco had been well instructed in the art of concealing his emotions and controlling his expression, his eyes were unable to lie.
She had watched him, studied him as mothers do, throughout his sixteen years and she had seen the mischievous sparkle appear behind impassive features as she chided him for sneaking into the library to read after bedtime. Likewise, she had watched those same eyes widen with fear as her little boy fought to hide his tears when his father would reprimand him for some transgression or another.
Although the lesson was not one she disagreed with, Narcissa was grateful that no matter how effectively Lucius taught him, she had always been able to depend on Draco's eyes to tell her what was really going on in her son's head.
But now, as she titled his pallid face up towards her own and looked into his eyes, normally so familiar to her, there was nothing. Neither triumph nor fear. No pride, no bitterness, no joy… nothing.
She had noticed him fading from her during the journey between London and Wiltshire at the end of Draco's fifth year at school. When normally mother and son talked endlessly about what had happened that year and savoured the time they had alone together- Draco because he was free to express his frustrations without fearing the same disapproval he would receive from his father and Narcissa because it was the one time she saw her son as the animated, vivacious boy she knew he was rather than the serious young Malfoy he had been tried so hard to be. It reminded her of the happier times when Draco was little; the days when Lucius had been called away to the Ministry, when the sun was out and they would take a picnic and go riding to the very edge of the estate… the sound of Draco's laughter and the pure, untainted smile upon his young face was the most precious vision contained within Narcissa's mind, and as the years went by, the less Draco laughed and the more tightly his mother held onto that image.
But now he was silent. Speaking only when asked a direct question and limiting his answer to no more than five words, Draco chose instead to gaze listlessly out of the window as they hurtled down the M4, watching as the world flashed by in streaks of grey and green. But Narcissa understood and she did not press him. Everything had changed for them both and it would be foolish to pretend otherwise.
No sooner had the car drawn up along side house, gravel crunching beneath the tires, Draco wrenched open the door and swept into their home without a word to anyone, not evening pausing to wait for the door to open automatically as it always did.
She did not go after him. There was a time and a place, she understood, for a mother's interference.
~*~*~*~
He says
"When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear"
~*~*~*~
The Other Side of the Desk-
It was as though his body had not yet realised what had happened. Palms clammy, heart pounding beneath his shirt, it was all Draco could do to prevent himself from knocking twice upon the door which loomed up before him, no less imposing now than it ever was. Timeless, unchanging and demanding the young man's humility, the dark panelled wood stood as proud as a sentinel, guarding what lay behind it.
Straightening his back and raising his chin, Draco reached out with a single long-fingered hand and clutched the silver orb which stood out starkly from the dark wood. At first it refused to budge, as though it were slowly considering what right the youngest Malfoy had to enter the master's study without permission. Then, almost as if it could sense the boy's desperation and decided to take pity on him, it relented. The handle turned easily, the door swung silently inwards and Draco Malfoy, with a tentativeness unseen within the walls of Hogwarts, stepped carefully over the threshold and into his father's study.
Grey eyes scanned the small room critically for anything that was out of place.
The bookshelves on the right, filled to the brim with brown, leather bound books with gold lettering, were tidy and meticulously organised into chronological order. The glass cabinet on the right, in which Lucius Malfoy kept his most precious and delicate trinkets, was locked and everything inside was intact. The carpet beneath the young man's feet was clear of debris and footprints.
Draco allowed the small wave of relief to wash through him- everything was in its place. Nothing had been tampered with.
Moving slowly around the simple, yet extravagant piece of furniture which had been placed precisely in the centre of the compact room, Draco ran a pale hand along the soft oak. Unlike the rest of the study- unlike the rest of the manor- Lucius Malfoy's desk was cluttered, untidy and very much lived in. Draco smiled a secret smile as he lowered himself into the soft, dark leather of his father's chair.
Never is his life had he been on this side of the desk.
The few occasions he had been permitted to enter this mysterious room had all been deeply unpleasant and Draco had always had to concentrate fixedly on the carpet rather than take any notice of anything else around him. It felt different here, Draco noticed, blue-grey eyes wandering leisurely around place inhabited by his father for the first time. It was so personal and so private... as though Draco was now seeing directly into his father's mind rather than simply facing a different side of a study.
Whilst the other side felt forbidding and aloof, this was everything that was not automatically associated with the cold, powerful Lucius Malfoy.
The countless shades of brown- buried within the books and the furniture- were warm and comforting rather than hard and dull. Even the scent of the room seemed to have changed. No, Draco corrected himself, not changed, just... presented itself. A delicate combination of cinnamon, fireweed honey and brandy drifted through the air, welcoming the boy who now sat in the master's seat and asking him to remember the times before anything else mattered. The times, so long ago now, before Draco was old enough to have anything expected of him, when the pleasure of having a small person was still wonderful and new to Lucius, when he would take Draco onto his lap and wear his glasses and his slippers as the little boy laid his head against his father's chest and felt the deep, velvet rumbling voice that was telling him about the Fountain of Fair Fortune; the times that had disappeared the moment Draco learnt to read the stories to himself...
Books bordered the edges of the desk, teetering on the brink of falling but never quite needing to- spell books, history books, novels by someone called Dickens... they all guarded and protected the small amount of privacy that his father had kept for himself from the prying eyes of the everyone on the other side of the door. Letters and documents lay in various heaps, covered by used envelopes with tattered edges and old quills with broken feathers. His father's glasses- the most personal object on the bureau, for no one but Draco and his mother had ever seen Lucius Malfoy wearing his black-rimmed spectacles- lay discarded on top of an incomplete letter with no address, next to a pen whose nib was crusted with dried black ink. He had been in the middle of writing when the summons came, realised Draco with a pang. No time to even finish the sentence...
A movement beside the tallest pile of books suddenly caught the young man's attention- contained within a small, silver frame and hidden from view from the other side of the desk, was a photograph. Draco reached carefully out to examine it, making sure that he did not disrupt any of the other objects.
It was them, the three of them. Draco- three, maybe four years old- proudly wearing his first set of dress robes and smiling delightedly up out of the frame as his mother held him securely in her satin lap and gently chided him to sit still and stop squirming. Narcissa Malfoy looked radiant and more beautiful than Draco had seen her look in a long while, with an iridescent glow of pride that only comes when life is perfect and your loved ones are gathered around you, as happy and as content as you are. His father stood proudly behind her seat, hands placed gently upon her lace-covered shoulders, as handsome as Narcissa was beautiful and wearing an identical (if more than slightly larger) set of dress robes as little Draco was.
With a smile and terribly painful sense of longing, Draco set the frame back down in its place- tearing his eyes away from the smiling faces of his parents- and turned his attention to one more object, one that could not and would not be ignored. Iconic, beautifully crafted and unquestionably merciless, it epitomised everything that his father was and threatened to be.
Hesitantly, almost reluctantly, the young Malfoy reached out to the long, silver-headed object propped casually up against the wall- a sure sign, Draco noticed with a twinge, that his father had every intention of returning immediately.
The cane felt surprisingly heavy in his hands when the boy cautiously lifted it towards him, although he was not quite sure why he should be surprised at the weight, considering how well he knew, first hand, of the damage it could cause, but the ease and the deftness with which his father carried and wielded it, made it appear as light as a fwooper feather. As he looked up at the emerald eyes which gazed haughtily over the top of his head- for sat down, he was several inches shorter than the cane- Draco silently cursed the snake for every bruise and every broken finger it had inflicted upon him, hating it for each drop of blood it had spilt and all the tears it had forced from his eyes.
And for one moment, one single moment of power, Draco felt a strong desire wash through him. A desire to take revenge on the hated stick and destroy it and shatter it and make it understand exactly what it had done to him for all those years...
But as the youngest Malfoy looked again into the polished green stones, he found that they were no longer filled with callousness or menace. On the contrary, it looked vulnerable, Draco noticed, as though without its master it was nothing but wood and metal. Useless, harmless. It knew what this boy could do to it in the absence of his father and it was afraid.
However, rather than feeling a deep satisfaction with the knowledge he now had dominance over the object which had terrorised him for so long, Draco instead felt as helpless and as lonely without his father as the cane was without its master. Even though it had been several weeks, it was only now that it truly struck him.
His father was gone.
The man who had always been there, always told him what to do and how to be, who he had respected and obeyed unwaveringly for sixteen years had been stolen away from him...
Draco looked again at the photograph of he and his parents and this time studied his father properly. Shoulders perfectly straight, head raised proudly, Lucius Malfoy stared boldly out of the glass, eyes bright and full of pride, daring any observer to judge or criticise. 'Look at my family', the familiar stone-grey eyes said. 'See how wonderful they are? See what I have achieved?' The slight twitch in the corners of his lips and the subtle crinkles beneath his eyes betrayed Lucius' genuine delight to any onlooker and, again, Draco was forced to grit his teeth hard as the enormity of what had actually happened crashed forcefully through his body.
It wasn't fair! He wasn't ready for this yet! He wasn't ready to do it by himself...
But what had happened had happened and no amount of wishing that it was otherwise could change that.
'I have to make the best of it,' thought Draco resolutely, running his thumb absently along the two sharp fangs protruding from the mouth of the snake. 'Mother, the honour of the Malfoy name, family pride...It's all my responsibility now. It's on my shoulders. And if anything goes wrong...it'll be all my fault.'
Blue-grey met green and the boy smiled dryly. "It's up to us now. I have to take his place. I have to make him proud."