The Will To Fight

by Switzerland Sun

I personally think that this is, so far, one of my more decent attempts at a story. The story should eventually have 3 to 5 chapters, as Alphard Black watches his great nephew grow up.

1. Chapter 1

The Will To Fight

Yours was not a bad life. You had a long and tolerable marriage to a woman to whom you hardly ever spoke, and you were both happier that way. You were the younger son, but your wife had a handsome dowry, and your brother died young, though he did produce both heir and spare. Your wife and yourself never did. You had one daughter early in your marriage, and several miscarriages a decade later, but never a son.

Your daughter in her turn grew up and made a decent marriage, and spawned herself a whole new branch on the family tree. Neither your wife nor the rest of your family much cared for the match, but you had the final say in the matter. You found the Weasley boy funny, and he was pureblood and wealthy enough, if not rich. Your daughter was very much in love with him, and you wished her a passion to her marriage that had never been present in your own.

Your brother's sons were also grown, and finding marriages of their own. Though they were late in the process. The younger brother married first. The elder waited until he was most of 30, and there were few enough left to pick from then.

When he did marry, he picked he most despicable soon-to-be-crone that you had ever met. Even the size of her dowry hadn't kept the other suitors who had knocked at her door.

But they were married and a son followed 5 years later. They named him after your father. But the baby did not match the gravity of his name. You saw him rarely as the bouncy, smiling baby, but he soon grew to a rambunctious toddler, who his parents were only to happy to give up for a few hours, especially when another baby followed him.

So in your old age, you found yourself with a new child whom you loved as much as your own birth daughter. You saw in him a rebelliousness that might make him fight for a happier life than yours. And though your niece-in-law might have things to say about it, you fostered it.

A/N: I sat down to write a drabble for my collection, If You Must Choose, and this thing went and spawned itself. I am looking for someone who might be willing to beta this, and possibly If You Must Choose. Thank you in advance for your lovely reviews (hint, hint )