The Hunchback of Notre Dame Inspired ish.

WC: 1010

Draco had never felt the sun. He was born in darkness, the moon not yet nascent, all the lights off as his mother heaved and heaved and heaved. Hours later, the midwife grasped him with hands covered in blood, wrapped him in a towel. Draco hadn't cried when he was born; it was as if he had known, even then, that his life ahead of him would be difficult. Draco liked to think of this moment as the moment that his father had been most proud of him. It took one glance, one gasp, for Lucius to see that his son was not what he had wanted.

But really, Draco snorted, what could he expect with all that pureblood inbreeding? For Merlin's sake, King George was barely as inbred as some of the old wizarding families and he pissed blue.

Lucius took one look at his son and sneered. He wanted nothing to do with a son with a birth defect. Even now, wanted nothing to do with a son who he can't parade around at parties and marry off to another Pureblood as if he's livestock. Draco was a broken investment, a failed business deal, a parasite on the family's resources, a shame to the Malfoy name.

"Here." Lucius thrust the baby back at his wife, his twisted expression masked by the dark room. He left quickly, shoes clicking angrily down the hall.

Narcissa cried. "You're my baby," she said, and held him close for the last time.

Draco was kept in a room with a single locked window. He was allowed to walk around the manor when his father gave him permission, but he wasn't really given permission very often. Lucius preferred to keep his biggest disappointment out of his mind at all times.

Draco wasn't just a disappointment, though. He was a painful symbol, a gash in Lucius's memory, a gap in his heart. The man did not value much besides his status, his heritage, and his money, but he had grown attached to his wife. He liked his wife. He had enjoyed living with his wife, his ever demure and giving and caring Narcissa.

The creation of something that he saw as impure and broken by his perfect wife was unfathomable. Perhaps as unfathomable as burying Narcissa in the Malfoy plot decades too early, her life taken at her own hand. "I hate that you treat your heir this way. And I hate that I'm powerless to stop it. I hate that I'm just a breeding sow to you. You've ruined my life. I hate you," she's said. Lucius remembered her perfect face marred by red splotches and hot tears, her fists balled into each other. For a moment, she seemed just like any other girl.

Lucius decided he would rather not have an heir, then.

"Nanny Narcissa isn't coming back to see you," Draco was told. "She's taken a job somewhere else."

Draco knew better than to ask what a job was, or why Nanny Narcissa would have left after eleven years of being his nanny. Lucius didn't wait to see the boy's expression and locked the door behind him.

So, little Draco stayed in the attic where he'd be out of sight. But it was ever so strange to him to see Lucius and a crowd of strange people in the back lawn all clad in black. They all just sat there for the longest time before they all left. Some of them were crying, and Draco wondered why they were all so sad.

Pansy was small for her age, but she made up for her stature two-fold in fierceness and sheer curiosity and fearlessness. She had been taken along to a funeral because her mother thought it would prepare her for the realities of life (and because Mrs. Malfoy had been a kind family friend, but that wasn't the reason that her mother held in her heart).

She had barely paid attention the entire ceremony, but her eye kept sneaking to a window in the manor. She saw a little face through the glass, and it looked upon the lawn with curiosity. Pansy wondered if it was a house elf, but ears weren't flappy enough. Suddenly, it dawned on her. She'd overheard her mother gossipping with some of her friends that the Malfoy family was secretly harboring a deformed child. Perhaps that was him.

She shifted in her chair and tried to stare him down. Yes, there was resemblance in the blonde hair. And something in his wide, flat face had a bit of Mr. Malfoy.

She caught his eye. When he scurried away from the window, Pansy noticed his hunched back and knew that he had seen her.

Draco heard a knocking at his window, which was very peculiar, because that was a sound he'd never heard before. He scrambled to put down his crayons and ran to the window. A branch was hovering outside as if by magic. He couldn't open the pane, but he stared down to the lawn outside.

A girl stood down there. She had a stick in her hand, and as she waved it, it fell back to the ground. She swung a leg over a broom and started to hover outside the attic window. "Who are you?" she said, and Draco heard her, barely, through the glass.

Draco knew he probably shouldn't talk to this strange girl, but he'd been dying to talk to someone ever since Nanny Narcissa had gone off to her new job. "I'm Draco. Your name?"

"Pansy. Pansy Parkinson." She put out her hand and feigned shaking it it up and down.

Draco was not sure what that meant, but he figured it wasn't harmful to him. "How are you flying on a broom?"

"Never seen magic or something? Are you a squib?"

Squib. Something he'd heard his father call him many times, in a way that made him feel like it was a bad thing. "Of course not," he scoffed.

"Then why aren't you at Hogwarts?"

"What?"

The girl's face seemed to show some sort of shock, then understanding. "Well, do you have any friends, Draco?"

"Friends?"

Pansy pressed her hand to the window. "So I guess I'll be a first."