Title: Once There Were Mothers
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Mr. Nott/Mrs. Nott, Mrs. Zabini/OMC, Lucius/Narcissa
Content Notes: Character death, violence, angst, present tense
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3400
Summary: Once, before Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, and Draco Malfoy learned of the existence of evil, there were mothers.
Author's Notes: Another of my "From Samhain to the Solstice" fics being posted between Halloween and December 21st. This is in response to a request from Sage00 about Blaise, Theo, and Draco in the Other People's Choices universe and their relationships with their mothers. It will make much more sense if you've already read Other People's Choices and Wolf's Choice first, even though this is technically a prequel, and this does technically spoil some things in those stories.
Once There Were Mothers
"And there is a wolf here. What can you tell me about the wolf, Theodore?"
Theodore obediently looks at the fairy tale book that Mother is holding open to him. "I think that the person who drew that picture didn't know how to draw a wolf," he says after a moment.
"Why, my darling?"
"It's blue."
"Perhaps it's blue because the person who drew the picture wanted it that way." Mother strokes his hair. Theodore leans more heavily on her and sighs a little. Father is out today and that means Mother can be gentler than she can be most of the time. The rest of it, Father tells her that Theodore is a big boy now, seven years old, and he can always go back to stories when he's older and knows how to fight. Then he takes Theodore for dueling lessons.
Theodore likes the dueling lessons, but he likes spending time with his slim, beautiful, brown-haired mother more.
"But it's not real."
"Well, none of the tales in this book are real in the sense that they didn't happen like the goblin wars—"
"What did I tell you about spoiling the boy, Astrid?"
Theodore looks up with a sudden choke as Mother's hand tightens in his hair. Yes, Father is standing and staring at them, and Theodore wants to hide his eyes from the look on his face. He doesn't only because he knows that would make Father even angrier.
"It seems that I cannot trust you to enforce my will when I am not here," Father says mildly, although he's looking at Theodore more than Mother. "Leave the room, Theodore. Your mother and I must have a talk."
"Tarquinius—"
"Now, Theodore."
Theodore gets up and walks slowly out of the room. But his hands are clenched at his sides, and he remembers how his mother's body went tense with fear.
One day, he is going to save her. One day, he is going to make it so that she doesn't have to fear Father ever again.
"Come here, Blaise!"
Blaise makes a little face, but he also turns and races back to the house of shining green stone that they're living in this year, ducking past the fountains and enormous flowering lilies of the garden. Unlike a lot of Mother's boyfriends and playthings, Jack actually likes him.
Jack laughs and grabs him when Blaise comes around the last huge lily, picking him up and swinging him around. "There's the little serpent!"
Blaise relaxes. Some of Mother's boyfriends only pretend to like him. But Blaise can always tell. And Jack is British, like Mother and Blaise's late father. He went to Hogwarts. He was in Slytherin. If he wants to tell Blaise that he'll be in Slytherin when he goes there, too, then he can.
Jack is a tall man with skin as dark as Mother's, and a shade darker than Blaise's. He carries Blaise easily back to the house before he sets him down on the carpet that runs along the inside of the sliding glass door, which shows roses that are real enough to fool their cats. "Do you want to know a secret, Blaise?"
"Of course I do!"
"I'm getting your mother something very special for her birthday." Jack lowers his voice. Blaise can hear Mother coming down the stairs. "But it's going to be a surprise. Don't tell her that it's a tiger-skin, okay?"
Blaise nods excitedly. Mother loves the skins of exotic creatures. That will make a great present for her, and Blaise will feel even better when he watches her unwrapping it, knowing that he knows what it is.
"What are you two plotting in here?"
Blaise shivers a little as Mother comes off the final step and around the corner. He loves her, but he's intimidated by her, too. She's so beautiful, and even though he knows Jack doesn't, Blaise can feel her Gift twisting over her skin like a heat shimmer. She has her black hair piled on top of her head today, and she's wearing shining scarlet robes with blue snakes on them.
"Telling Blaise what I plan for your birthday dinner," Jack says, and stands up and kisses Mother's cheek.
Sometimes Blaise thinks they look wrong together. Jack is handsome, but nowhere near as beautiful as Mother, and Mother sometimes looks at him in a way that reminds Blaise of a snake in a not-good way. But just now, Mother touches Jack's cheek and smiles at him, and Jack's eyes glaze a little as the Gift grabs him.
"How nice," Mother says, "I do like surprises."
"I need to speak to you, Draco."
Draco follows his mother uncertainly into the large blue sitting room that she uses when she has unpleasant friends come over. His stomach turns sideways when she turns and nods at an uncomfortable chair. He's never had to sit here before.
He sits down, though, with his brain churning. What did he do? He was at a luncheon party Mother hosted today, and as always, he had to greet her friends before he could go back to playing with Vince and Greg. But he knows his bow was correct and he said all the right things, or she would have talked to him before this. It's several hours since the luncheon now.
Mother looks straight into his eyes, and Draco looks back and stops fidgeting. He can mind his manners even if he's being scolded for something he didn't do.
"You were rude to Greg yesterday."
"I was not! I was honest. I only told him the truth."
"That he was dim? That he would never succeed at Hogwarts?"
Mother is frowning at him, and Draco has to fight back the impulse to squirm. He knows that he didn't do anything wrong. He's sure of it. "Mother…"
"You told him what you could not know to be the truth, in cruel words. That was unbecoming of you, Draco."
Draco flinches. "Unbecoming" is the worst word that Mother can use. Even Father goes around looking as though he's swallowed ashes when Mother uses it of him. Draco swallows a big gulp of air and sits up as straight as he can. "I'm sorry, Mother. I won't do it again."
"That particular insult, no. But you must understand the wider thing I am asking of you, Draco. You should not speak of things which you cannot know about or understand as yet as true. And you must also be ready to be gracious in your words and hold back. And I am not the one you owe an apology."
Draco thinks, then asks, "Greg?"
Mother nods. "You must apologize to him. And then never do something so unbecoming again."
Draco takes a deep breath. "I won't, Mother. Can you ask Greg's mother if he can come over tomorrow? I'll apologize to him then."
For the first time since the beginning of the conversation, Mother smiles. She reaches out and smoothes Draco's hair down, standing up so she can kiss him on the forehead. "Very good, dear one. You will not do it today, since you need time to think over how you will word the apology, but you will not put it off, either."
Draco leans comfortably against her side. Mother understands him so well, and he understands her. "I love you, Mother."
"I love you as well, darling."
And she never tells him saying that, or asking her to say it, is unbecoming.
Theodore walks out of his rooms, his kite balanced on one arm. It's a perfect, beautiful, windy day today, and he wants to fly it.
He comes around the corner of the large corridor, looking out the window, and then stops. His father is standing in front of him, a faint smile on his face. It's weird, because the smile looks more like a grimace, but Theodore knows that Father would never allow himself to actually grimace.
"Come with me, Theodore."
Silently, Theodore follows his father. He hopes that whatever this is won't take very long. He wants to go fly his kite!
They go around another corner and come to the top of the grand staircase. There's what looks like a large mass of pillows lying in the middle of the floor. Then Father waves his wand and the illusion dissolves, and Mother is lying there instead, her hair spread around her head, her face turning blue-green and her hand clawing the air.
Theodore drops his kite.
"P-please," Mother gasps, and her body spasms up and then falls back on the floor. Theodore's heart is galloping and his eyes hurt. "N-not in front of the boy, Tarquinius."
"No, he has to learn the price of defiance." Father puts his heavy hand on Theodore's shoulder. "Watch her, Theodore. Watch her and learn what happens when you're weak."
Theodore watches in silence. He wants to break away and run to Mother, but she's locked her eyes with his, and her head is twitching. He knows that she wants him to stay where he is.
He stays and obeys her one last time, and the blue-green spreads all over her face and down her chest. She makes a horrible rattling sound that Theodore knows he will hear in his dreams for the rest of his life. Father's hand tightens on his shoulder. Maybe he thinks Theodore is going to run forwards and try to stop her from dying.
She wanted him to be still, though. Theodore holds still.
Her last word is his name.
Theodore stands and stares, and watches as the blue-green spreads all over her corpse and turns it into a pile of ash. A few minutes later, the house-elves appear to sweep it up.
He knows what happened. Father "casually" left a description of a poison that could do this in a folded parchment in his lessons book a few days ago. Theodore stands and stares, and something breaks in him.
It's really strange. It feels like an urn of water overflowed and bathed him for a second before all the water drained away.
Theodore stands and stares. Father's hand is heavy on his shoulder.
"You owe me, Father," Theodore says. He doesn't move.
"I only taught you a lesson that would have come—"
Theodore turns around. And Father drops his hand from Theodore's shoulder and backs away from whatever he sees in his eyes.
"You owe me a favor," Theodore repeats steadily. "Because she died in front of me."
Father hesitates for one moment. Then he nods and says, "Very well. Be careful when you claim the favor."
"I will be," Theodore says, and he turns and walks back to his room, leaving the house-elves to pick up his kite. He doesn't want it anymore. Kites are for babies.
Theodore has other things to learn.
"I hope you love it, Naarah."
Blaise finds himself wincing and sitting quietly as he watches Mother lift the tiger-skin out of the package that Jack wrapped it in. Of course the package is beautiful, shining green paper with twine tied around it. And the skin looks perfect to Blaise, too, with its dangling paws and its shining stripes.
But Mother is displeased. Blaise can tell from the way she holds the skin aloft, the way that her arms form a less-than-graceful arch.
Why, though? Blaise hasn't the slightest idea of what makes this gift different from the other ones that he and Jack have given her for her birthday or other holidays down the years.
Mother, though, gives them both a soft smile and tucks the skin into the package. "You're right, Jack. I do admire it."
She gets up to kiss Jack's cheek, and Blaise finds himself frozen and trembling. Admire, Mother used. Not love.
He thinks about warning Jack, but the Gift has grabbed him and Mother is watching Blaise. He sits back and reaches numbly for the fork next to his plate. It's time for the birthday dinner to begin.
"You will spoil the boy, Narcissa."
Draco halts. He was going to walk into the bedroom and bring his mother breakfast in bed, but she is talking to Father. He puts down the heavy tray and waits against the wall.
"I am not going to spoil him, Lucius. In fact, I made him apologize to his friend and mind his manners. That sounds like the opposite of spoiling to me."
"I mean ruin him. I am trying to teach him his place in the world, and you undermine me at every turn!"
There's a sudden crash. Draco shrinks back against the wall. He only hears that when Father is really, really angry and conjures things to smash.
"Do not think that you have the advantage of me, Lucius, no matter how quickly you move. I could cast a spell now that would wither you below the waist, and then where would you be?"
Draco holds even stiller. He's never heard Mother sound like that. And would she really paralyze Father? She might. If she gets angry the way Father does when he smashes things.
"You've made your point, Narcissa."
"I don't think so. We made a bargain when we married, Lucius. You know what it was. Are you going to back off and let me do as I like? Or are you going to interfere and perhaps sacrifice a few things that you no longer need?"
There's a huge, tense silence. Draco stares down at the soup on the tray and thinks that it's getting cold.
"You have made your point."
"Yes, I think I have."
Draco waits until he hears the whoosh of the fireplace. He knows that means Father has left by the Floo, and it's safe to take in his mother's breakfast now. He picks up the tray, and carefully balances it across his arms, and knocks.
Mother opens the door, looking slightly flushed. Her hair is down and sparkling and spread across her shoulders under a silver net, and that makes Draco relax. Mother only has her hair like that when she's going to sit and talk to him for a while, so the spells in the net can work on her hair.
"Good morning, Draco, my darling," Mother says, and bends down to kiss him, and brings him into the room. "Is that for me? How thoughtful!"
Draco looks at the hole in the plaster near the fireplace, but he decides he's not going to ask. Father is always saying that one gets to choose the things one thinks about. Well, he's going to choose.
And he chooses to enjoy Mother's company this morning.
"You have spent a lot of time in the library with my books lately, Theo."
His father learns quickly. Theo smiles at him and settles into his chair at the lunch table across from his father. "Yes, I know, sir. But I really do think that I need more practice with charms before I go to Hogwarts. Especially since I know that I'm going to end up in Slytherin." He rearranges the bread of the sandwich in front of him—the house-elves never get it exactly right—and starts to eat.
"You need not think you can bring her back."
Theo blinks at Father, honestly startled. "Necromancy? No, Father, I never thought that." And Father will probably know it, too. He would have charms on all the necromancy books in the library, to make sure none of them were disturbed.
Father leans slowly back in his chair. "Then what are you looking for?"
"You said Mother was weak. I think so, too, Father. I need to become strong. I need to study magic and make sure no one can ever hurt me again."
Father actually picks up a glass of whatever he's drinking and toasts Theo with it. "That's more sensible than I thought you were. Perhaps Astrid gave me a worthy heir after all."
"I hope so, Father." Theo lowers his eyes and smiles the way his father likes him to smile, and keeps eating.
Later he goes back to the library. Of course he isn't looking at the books on necromancy. Mother read him lots of stories how bringing back the dead never works, and it would take years, anyway. Theo wants something that will make his father pay long before then.
He's looking at the books on poisons. And the house-elves are helping him disable the charms. Mother was very kind to them. They liked her.
Father never should have done that. He's going to regret it. Theo is going to kill him. And his mother, much as he loved her, was weak, or she would have killed him before he could hurt her.
Blaise has been playing alone all morning. Usually Jack would come out and play with him, but this time, he seems to have been detained. Blaise finds himself turning to stare up at the high windows of the villa. One of them is Mother's.
By noon, Jack still hasn't come out to play, so Blaise returns to the dining room for lunch by himself. Mother sweeps into the room while he's studying the flatbread that the cook gave him. Blaise is used to flatbread with garlic and tomatoes and all kinds of oil, but this seems to be scattered with an herb that makes him sneeze.
"Jack has moved on, Blaise."
This is something he's heard before, with different names. But Blaise finds that he's dropped his chunk of flatbread on his plate and he's staring at his mother in horror. He works his throat, trying to find words. There don't seem to be any.
Mother sits down across from him and reaches for one of the many papers that she takes. Some are Italian and some British, some wizarding and some Muggle. She reads them as gracefully as she always does and eats her flatbread with no sign of being upset.
Finally, she does raise her head and fix her attention on him, while one of her eyebrows goes up. "Is something wrong, Blaise?"
Blaise's throat struggles to produce sounds, and it apparently just is not going to happen. He takes a deep breath and finally blurts, "Did you kill him?"
"I will thank you not to use that word."
"But why?" Jack has lasted longer than almost any of the others that Mother dates or marries.
"He did something that I did not like," Mother says, and goes back to reading the newspaper. A bowl smelling of basil floats in from the kitchen, and Mother eats that, too, flicking pages with tiny dry sounds.
Blaise sits still. He can't leave the table until Mother is pleased to let him go. He has learned that lesson well.
He clasps his hands under the table so Mother can't see them shake.
He's afraid of her. He's always been afraid of her. But somehow, this time he is more afraid than all the rest.
Draco thinks he understands things, now.
His father often gives him lessons in the library. He tells Draco about the history of wizarding wars, the history of wizarding blood relations, and Dark Lords. He explains why he fought in the last war, and why the side he chose was the best one. Draco sometimes doesn't understand everything, but Father is patient and always goes back and answers his questions.
Mother teaches him manners and etiquette. And she tells him stories.
If someone asked Draco a few weeks ago who taught him the most, he would say, "Father, of course!" Because Mother told stories while they sat lazily in the sunlight in the solarium, or while she was tucking him into bed, or while she was strolling with him through Diagon Alley.
Stories. Little tales of times she quarreled with her friends or her parents. Things she saw when she was young. How to clean a window. Encounters with animals and magical creatures. Fairy tales from long ago.
But Draco thinks—it's the way he thinks. When he looks at animals or windows or people or spells his parents perform, it's Mother's stories he thinks of. She's teaching him how to think. Father teaches him what to think.
It's hard for Draco to feel his way through all of this, and he doesn't know if he has it exactly right.
But he knows, as he brushes his mother's hair and she leans back in her seat with a soft smile, that he's going to do his best to think the way his mother wants him to.
It seems wise.
The End.