AN: This is a slightly random one-shot that I've had for a while… published at friends' request. Hope you enjoy! ~JT
Bloody hell.
This attic hadn't been touched in centuries.
Draco kept walking throughout the debris, wondering how and why all these things ended up in the attic of Malfoy Manor. He could hear the clink of dishes downstairs as Astoria finished up the house duties. Although the attic was somehow conveniently left to him to tackle. The ruined lamps, broken furniture, useless shelving, once shining brass and gold posts and door-knockers, an old, yellowed piano, wearily tinkering at the touch, a set of handsome silverware, a cobwebbed mirror, and boxes – piles and piles of the cardboard monsters, covered in inch-thick layers of dust.
He sighed, setting himself on a red-cushioned rocking chair, hoping it wouldn't collapse, and pulled the first box at random towards him with his heel. Upon tearing the tape with a wave of his wand, the opened it to find a mismatch of female winter coats. Thinking this may be of some use to Astoria, if not to wear then to laugh at, colouring the dismal autumn nights with the bright sprinkle of her laughter, he shoved it aside, coughing violently at the cloud of dust enveloping him as he did. Pulling out the next box from underneath what looked like a wooden horse that could have fitted a small child, he again found no label whatsoever on the cardboard. Thinking this was slightly peculiar, he tore it open with his hands only to find a few cookbooks, dated 1876, a man's watch that fitted Draco's wrist perfectly, although he shoved it back, and some extra candles. Laying the candles aside, remembering Astoria's complaints that there was never enough light in the house, his eyes searched for the next box.
He chose a small one on top of a pile-up. Reaching up and using the shelving as a footstool, he managed to reach it and bring it over to the red armchair. Upon inspecting it for a label he nearly dropped the box out of shock.
Narcissa's handwriting stood out, clear as day. "To preserve".
He couldn't help but wonder. Had she been alive, would she have wanted him to open it? He turned the box hesitantly over in his hands, then shrugged and cut it open. After all, it's not like she was around to stop him.
Inside, strangely, he found not a colloid of mismatched everyday items but something that was obviously placed here for a reason. Wrapped in soft, cushiony velvet, which Draco quickly removed, was a shallow basin, empty. Gentle, milkish stains on the borders shone in the dusty light, and the cryptic symbols on the sides seemed to toss and turn and not permit Draco to tear his eyes away. When he finally did, the fingers of his other hand were closed around the second object in the box – a tiny, crystal vial, the white essence of thought spinning around and around.
Draco stood up instantly, his mind having no doubt over what it was. To think there was one, here in this attic, all this time… almost with a schoolchild's excitement he lay the basin on top of the piano, whose keys still mourned its own death at every push, and uncorked the vial, spilling the memory into the pensieve with the swiftness of water.
Before he could stop or assess what he was doing, the old attic was already gone.
….
How bright can sunlight be, exactly? Shining through the grey-green, wallpapered room, it seemed to cut the air itself into a myriad of fractions.
"I'm going to have a girl," Announced Andromeda, swinging her feet, sitting on the window-ledge. "Then I get to dress her up in dresses and bows and sparkles, just like Mimi." She held the doll close to her chest, rocking her softly, her auburn waves spilling over her shoulders and framing the eight-year-old's face.
"Pathetic," Snorted the taller girl, whose jet-black hair was pulled tightly back from the sharper, ten-year-old face. "Say, I don't even want children. Too much of a hassle. Mum's just about had it with us, and I don't want a whiny little ball of puke taking up all of my time. You better just get rid of Mimi already, Andy." The black eyes travelled to the window-sill. "Don't become too fond."
"Shut UP, Bella!" Shouted Andromeda. "Mimi's special." With those words the doll was brought closer to her. "You don't understand."
The little girl in the corner said nothing. At six, she could barely follow her sister's conversation. The pale blond locks stroked her rosy cheeks, and the pink silk bows on her dress seemed to accent the gentleness and shyness of her being.
"What do YOU think, Cissy?" Spat Bellatrix. "Kids are stupid, right?"
Andromeda's deep brown eyes found Narcissa's, open wide, almost in silent prayer.
Narcissa, frozen, looked from one to the other, to the birds outside the window, then back. "I... I don't think they're stupid at all."
Andromeda let a relieved sigh escape her sunburnt lips only to dodge a swipe from Bellatrix's direction.
The little Cissy kept talking. "I ... I don't want a girl though... it would get boring… "Almost proudly she announced, mimicking Andromeda: "I want a boy."
At this both sisters grimaced. "Boys are ICKY, Ciss, " Andy told her sister. "They eat too much and talk too much and think too little. They've all gone nuts.
Bellatrix nodded. "Better no kids, Cissy."
Narcissa shook her head, the six-year-old blue eyes wide open. "But I want a boy."
Andromeda sneered, almost in reminiscence of her sister. "And what exactly will you name him?"
At this Cissy's voice became a scared whimper. "Draco…" She whispered solemnly.
For a minute there was silence. Bellatrix finally broke it. "That is the dumbest name I have ever heard."
Narcissa's open eyes welled up with tears. She looked down, each drop staining her pale-blue skirt.
Bellatrix smirked and took Andromeda by the sleeve. "Come on, And, let's go play Quidditch and leave the crybaby alone with her.. What was it? She glanced, highly amused in Narcissa's direction. "Draco."
For many minutes, the little, fragile girl sat there, crying. She couldn't understand why they teased her so bad. The blond swirls how dripping wet with tears, she looked up into the empty room. She smiled slightly, her imagination taking hold of her uncontrollable mind once more. Her eyes reflected the face of the little blond boy standing there, to everyone else, nonexistent. Her voice was barely a whisper.
"You hear me, Draco, don't you?"
…
His grey eyes stared at the surface of the basin. His face was wet – but not from water, from tears. Narcissa, Narcissa, gentle, soft, caring Narcissa, where had you gone… the tips of his fingers touched the silvery surface, almost hoping to call her back. He wanted, now more than anything, to lie across the couch, his head in his mother's lap, to feel her stroking his hair lovingly, and to hear her airy voice ask if he was alright, smelling fumes of the tea in the kitchen that Astoria, no matter how hard she tried, could not replicate exactly right. He doubted if it was possible.
He longed to hold her one more time. To tell her what she had never heard from him. How much he loved her. How much he needed her. How vulnerable he really was, here, in this attic, in this home, in this life, without her…
He always used to laugh at her being shorter than him, carrying her around for fun and scaring her once in a while. Except the day he left on a trip to America. He barely nodded goodbye, promising half-heartedly to write, breathtaken by adventure and his love for Astoria, that hadn't diminished… but he distinctively remembered the blackness that had invaded him once he stepped foot back into King's Cross Station, an owl pecking at his shoulder, and read the three lines posted of Narcissa's death from disease posted at the back of the Daily Prophet.
The dust invaded his consciousness just as Narcissa, once again, invaded his soul.
"I do, Mum." He whispered. "I hear you."