Miss Moony would like to say that she doesn't own Harry Potter and that she had no help with this story from Miss Wormtail, Miss Padfoot or Miss Prongs.
Sequel of sorts to "A Matter of Spite".
------- I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good -------
Whom will you cry to, heart? More and more lonely,
Your path struggles on through incomprehensible
Mankind. All the more futile perhaps
For keeping to its direction,
Keeping on toward the future,
Toward what has been lost.
Once. You lamented? What was it? A fallen berry
Of jubilation, unripe.
But now the whole tree of my jubilation
Is breaking, in the storm it is breaking, my slow
Tree of joy.
Loveliest in my invisible
Landscape, you that made me more known
To the invisible angels.
- Lament (Whom Will You Cry To, Heart?), Rainer Maria Rilke
------- I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good -------
The Invisible Boy
20:27:
'I will not allow you to mollycoddle my son. He is a Malfoy.'
The shout was loud and clear-cut, and Draco Junior heard every word Father was saying as he watched the argument through the bars supporting the banisters at the top of the stairs, invisible.
Ma wasn't fighting back this time; she was just letting Father shout. She'd been doing that recently, and Draco Junior thought that maybe the only time he saw her happy was when his Uncles and Aunts came to visit.
Draco Junior liked those visits, too, though it was best when Uncle Fred and Uncle George came. They always took Draco Junior flying, as long as the weather was good. They said that he would probably be a Chaser at Hogwarts.
When Ma had talked back to Father before, he'd always silenced her with a sharp slap, just as Grandfather had done with Grandmother while he'd been alive.
Draco Junior knew that those slaps had hurt Ma. He'd seen her flinch, though she'd never cried out, and the mornings after, he'd always seen her wincing as she covered blue skin with expensive concealer.
No one had noticed his silent observations before, and he doubted that that would change today. Not when Father was angry and Draco Junior was silently sitting on the landing.
21:03:
'Junior?' Ma's voice was slightly hoarse. She'd been crying, as she always did after her arguments with Father. Draco Junior had watched her often enough, but she'd never noticed.
His eyes opened a crack, but Ma didn't see; the lights were out.
He felt the mattress shift slightly as she sat down on the edge of his bed, and his eyes flickered closed once again, as she reached over and brushed a few stray strands of hair out of his face.
'I'm sorry,' she whispered softly. 'I'm sorry… for everything, really. I love you, Junior, and I love your father, too. Even if he doesn't love me.'
She hesitated for a moment, before adding, 'At one time, I even thought he did.'
Draco Junior didn't let her know he was only pretending to be asleep: that was the only time that she really saw him.
00:59:
Father was in his own chamber when Draco Junior entered, but he wasn't yet abed.
'Junior,' he snapped, when he saw the boy's reflection in the full-length mirror. 'What do you want?'
Draco Junior didn't answer. Instead he walked over and held his hand out, offering up the long, dirty piece of cord he was holding.
Father sneered contemptuously at the boy, and then turned his back. He could have seen his son's approach in the mirror he was gazing at so fixedly as he sat, if he'd bothered to look, but Draco Junior was invisible, and that was just the way he liked it.
07:30:
There was a shriek, and Draco Junior knew that his work had been discovered. He stood in the doorway of his bed-chamber, and watched as she dropped to her knees across the hall.
Draco Junior moved away from the doorway to stand behind her. The hallway was silent, except for Ma's quiet cries, and devoid of any life but the mother and son.
There was a slender, purpling bruise around Father's neck, beneath a length of dirty chord, and the corpse's face was bloated almost unrecognisably.
Draco Junior stood behind Ma while she cried into her hands, watching her, but she never saw him.
Still invisible, he thought.
10:01:
St. Mungo's wasn't so bad; just depressingly white. Ma was in the hallway, talking to the Auror who'd questioned Draco Junior, and he could hear the desperate longing in her voice.
'Please,' she begged, 'you can't take him away. He's just a child.'
'Nevertheless, Mrs. Malfoy,' the Auror replied, 'he's committed murder. We won't be taking him to Azkaban, though. The Healers say he'd do better here; in the Permanent Residents Ward.'
Draco Junior didn't mind. The Healers had talked over him as he sat there, invisible. They'd said he was mad – a danger to himself and those around him. He couldn't go to Azkaban, though. He was still a minor.
Ma came in when she'd finished talking to the Healer, and sat down by Draco Junior's side, taking his hands in her own, fragile ones. 'I'll keep fighting for you, Junior,' she said. 'I promise.'
'They can't keep me locked up here forever, Ma,' he answered.
'Why's that?' She hadn't been laughing, or unbelieving, merely curious.
'Because I'm your invisible boy,' he mumbled.