Mabry
Hi! *waves and smiles* So this is my part for my group's first ever entry in the Quidditch European Cup Competition, run by middleofsomewhere on the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum :) Very popular, and definitely my favorite HP forum. Be sure to check it out! ;) HOLIHEAD HARPIES FOR THE WIN!
Disclaimer: Who 'tis this "J.K." Rowling person you speak of? What?! THE WRITER OF HARRY POTTER! NO NO NO NO NONONONONONONO! *wails* FINE O..O I only own dis mind o' mine, HAPPY?
Prompts: fire, palm, luck
Draco Malfoy is five years old when his father brings home his first house-elf. Draco's a very intelligent boy, neither his father nor mother nor even himself doubts that much, and his father clearly realizes it's time to start teaching his boy the ropes for being a rich, well-known pureblooded boy. She's the first of many "gifts" Draco will get.
Her name is Mabry, and she's a scrawny thing, with her boney ligaments and unervingly protudent ribs, vaguely seeable through her old, patched up rag, which has been sloppily cut and disastrously sewn to resemble something of a dress; she has big, awful shoes that look as if they are made of the same material. Her ears are gigantic, as are her enormous, wide, gray speckled blue eyes, the color identical to an ocean's waters raging in the midst of a great storm. Her skin is the color of cement, and lined with creases and wrinkles, especially in her older, wise-looking face. She looks half worried and half excited, as if she could not decide whether to be thankful she has been chosen by such an important family, or frightened because of the rumors she has heard about Draco Malfoy's father.
Draco does not know about these rumors. Mabry will never tell him.
He stares at her, his eyes taking in this new addition to his home. He's still quite short for his age, and he only has to look down a couple of inches to see her face. He's intrigued by her, relating her to the other house-elves they own in their home. She not much different than the rest of them, skinny and small and dirty, with bandaged fingers and calloused palms, with huge, hungry eyes that almost beg for attention.
And the scars. She has scars too. Just like the rest of them.
His father clears his throat expectantly. Draco thanks him appraisingly for this new gift. His mother looks at them with an expressionless mask. Mabry just goes to cook her first meal in the Malfoy Manor.
Draco likes to watch Mabry start the fire.
She's been here for almost a year now, for his sixth birthday and Halloween and Christmas, and even as April is rolling back around with it's new sweet-smelling flowers and happily chirping birds, the Manor is still as cold and drafty as ever, and Draco always ends up finding himself wearing at least two sweaters indoors, even with the news of the warmest spring in Britain in the last decade or so.
And as the Manor is always continuously freezing, the house-elves still have the job of lighting the fireplaces every day.
Draco pops his small, wide, silvery eyes open, blinking to clear the fog from his vision, and, making absolutely no motion or noise, he focuses on the small figure bent in front of his fireplace, just across the room.
She's right on time, as she's always been.
He doesn't quite know what is so fastinating about the way Mabry lights the fire in his room every morning. Maybe it's the skillful, precise work of her hands as she creates the blaze inside the grate. Maybe it's the fierce yet gentle movements she uses as she weaves her elfen magic into a flame. Maybe it's the graceful way she places the firey spark floating in her hands onto the wood for buring, as if she were a mother setting down her own child, with tenderness and care.
In any of these ways, the way she creates a simple flame is somehow an utter, unworldy beauty.
And with a sudden, welcomed warmth radiating over Draco's childish form, Draco lets himself fall back into a groggy, warm, comfortable sleep, a gentle smile spreading over his face.
He misses the little knowing smile she adorns upon him after his eyes are already closed.
Mabry tells the most wonderful stories.
Draco is seven now and October has just rolled in, leaving him cold almost every minute of every day; being in or out still did not matter. However the cold numbness of winter has not dimmed or put down his childlike curiousity and his intelligent thirst for a wide range of knowledge.
So one night, as Mabry is tucking him tightly into bed under five very warm fleece blankets, his fire still blazing wildly, Draco asks her for a bedtime story.
It's quite a strange request for Draco, as his father nor his mother have ever done such a thing, probably much less even thought about it, sneering at such a Muggle-based idea, as they have always done, but Mabry just gives a small smile, the only questioning shown in the look deep in her wise eyes, and she sits in Draco's wooden rocking chair and begins to speak.
And now, ever since that one night, every night Draco will ask for a story and Mabry will deliver, telling tales of cunning, cackling stumps, of coughing hopping pots and fountains of fair fortune, of the warlock's hairy heart and of the brothers three, who met Death on a long winding road. Her voice, though quiet in the spacious room, is always filled with passion and beauty and furvor as she reads from Draco's quite large collection of books, reading amazing and incredulous tales.
Tonight, as she has finished tucking him in and making sure he's warm enough, she does something she's never done before: she asks him if she can, if he pleases, read him a book she has picked herself.
Draco may be Lucius Malfoy's son, and while the rumors outside the Manor about him being a selfish, spoiled, rotten little boy were not entirely true, if Draco is anything, Draco is curious, a quality he shows more than any of his smarts or his cunning.
He's going be a Slytherin one day, just like his parents, no one doubts that much.
He nods his approvement, eyebrows cocked curiously. Something, something deep inside Mabry's eyes almost looks stunned for a moment, but she does not achnoledge her suprise at the boy's actual compliance. She simply snaps a small, dirty brown book into existance, with a colorful animated silver shoe illustrated across the front, sits herself into that mahogany-wooded rocking chair, a ghost of a smile misted around the stern creases of her mouth, and begins to read about the sweet young servant girl who lived an awful life, only to end up married to a charming prince with the help of her fairy godmother and a shiny glass slipper.
Draco's never heard a story quite like this, and he realizes it much be some sort of Muggle book, as no real witch in her right mind would be suprised to find that she had a magical godmother that could transfigure pumpkins into gleaming carriages or mice into footmen. And besides, there were no such things as fairy godmothers! What kind of person had the stupid epiphany that magical godmothers would have to be human-like fairies? Everyone knew fairies were small and didn't use magic wands! And they certainly didn't fumble around like idiots in gaudy blue robes!
Draco sneers as Mabry finishes the story, quite a queer expression for such a young, innocent-like face. He narrows his eyes at the book.
"Why would anyone care to write about a maid?" Draco asks, sounding, for a moment, almost as pompous as his father as Mabry places the book into his bookshelf, near the end in one of the dark corners as to possibly conceal it from Lucius Malfoy. "Who cares?"
"Maybe Mr. Perrault saw something in this girl that he thought was important, Master Draco," Mabry says, a bit vaguely, as she returns to his bedside to re-tuck his covers, as he ruined them sitting up to listen to the story.
"But what?" Draco whines, impatiently letting her redo his blankets. "Why was she so important, Mabry?"
And a small smile crosses Mabry's gentle mouth as she looks at her Master's boy, her gaze filled with tenderness and even, maybe, some form of care.
For Mabry knows the truth. Mabry has lived here for nearly two years. Mabry has seen Master Draco at his worst, has seen Master Draco's screaming fits and his pounding tantrums, heard his nasty words and child-like taunts toward the other boys that come around with their own stiff, pure-blood parents, seen him demand things from his uncaring parents and seen the selfish gleams in his eyes when he gets what he wants, because not only is he the son of Lucius Malfoy, but he is also, still, just a child.
But Mabry has also seen the good times. She's seen the sadness in Master Draco's eyes when he found the dead bluejay outside his window just weeks ago, has peeked at his gentle, smiling face when she lights his fire every morning, has heard small yet real laughter escape his being when he reads 'The Wizard and The Hopping Pot' to himself because it's always been his favorite story, has seen the joy in his eyes when he gives his mother a flower from the garden and she keeps it, and when it withers he gives her another and, once more, she keeps it.
And finally, she's seen the troubled look on his pure face when he hears his father talking furvorently about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, sees his slightly trembling hands and hears his unnaturally quiet breathing when his father talks about the Lord's maybe return, and their family's unwavering loyalty to such a powerful man. Sees the uncertainty. Sees the nervousness. Sees the fear. And she knows.
She knows it won't be like that. She just... knows.
Because Master Draco is more than a servant girl. Master Draco is a prince.
"Well, Master Draco," she says softly, "maybe he saw past the servant girl. Maybe he saw past the darkness on the outside. Maybe he saw some greatness deep inside of her. And maybe, just maybe, sir... he knew she was meant for more important things than darkness."
She's done that too. He just doesn't know it yet.
"Mabry?"
"Yes, Master Draco?" Mabry asks the eight-year-old, turning away from her steaming onion soup to glance at the boy.
It only takes one look, because she knows that look. He has that expression on his face, the one where his eyebrows are cocked curiously and his chin juts out just right, and she knows he has a question.
"Do you have a question, Master Draco?" She asks.
"Well...," he mumbles, shuffling a bit awkwardly, "... sort of, yeah."
"Is something that matter, Master Draco?"
"Not really," he says, thinking. "I was just wondering..."
"Yes, Master Draco?" Mabry asks as she turns back to the soup, adding in more spices.
"Why do you call me 'Master'?"
Mabry freezes in her spice-adding, feeling a chill run down her spine. She had definitely not expected that.
"I'm... I'm sorry, Master Draco?" She asks for a repeat hesitantly.
"You know..." he says, and she can hear him shifting again. "I mean... I mean... you know. Why do you always call me 'Master Draco'?"
"Well..." She starts to answer, not turning from her soup. "It's just... just the polite way, Master Draco. That's all."
"But that doesn't make any sense," the boy inquires, schrunching up his face in confusion. "I mean, Father is polite to Mother, and he doesn't call her 'Master Mother'."
She has to stifle an almost chuckle for that. It would not be appropriate, and not worth the punishments if Lucius Malfoy ever found out about this quite... interesting conversation.
Oh no, most definitely not.
"It's just...," she says, resisting a sigh, "...it's just the way things are, Master Draco. Just as your father is Master Malfoy and your mother is Mistress Malfoy, you are Master Draco. It is respectful, as a house-elf."
"Is it... is it because you're the servant?" Draco asks, shuffling his feet again, sounding almost abashed.
"...Yes," she says, finally, almost whispering, feeling her small chest tighten. "Yes, Master Draco."
The room is unervingly silent for a long moment as she slowly stirs the soup, her mind miles away. She closes her eyes, holding back the urge to cry. She can feel Master Draco's eyes on her back. Her back, covered in that dirty, old, ugly rag, and her large old feet with their awful shoes, and her twig-like, wrinkly limbs, and her scarred, spindly fingers, and her pathetic little tuft of grey hair upon her head.
She feels lower than usual, knowing know that Master Draco, little and innocent Master Draco, has finally realized, has finally seen how inferior her kind is, how inferior she isto them, and even though she knows the awful truth, the truth of the giant, society-ruled rift between house-elves and wizards, maybe something deep down inside hoped that this boy would be different.
But of course he wasn't! Mabry has worked for many families, pure-blood and half-blood and blood-traitors alike, and she's taken care of many children, different in color and manner and personality alike, and she knows that there always, always comes a time where the child will realize, without a doubt, that the cute, squeaky little house-keeper that cleans their rooms so they don't have to and plays dolls with them on their off time, sneaks them little candies during dinner when their parents don't notice and tuck them in at bedtime every night with a smile, are a lower class of being, and the child will become just like their parents: polite and gentle toward them, normally, but always with that sense of awkwardness and silent realizations, because, as both the house-elf and the master know, they could never, never ever, be equals.
And now Master Draco has reached that point. And nothing will be the same again.
"Well...," Master Draco goes on, sounding hesitant. "You... you don't have to, you know. Call me Master Draco, I mean. I- I mean, if you don't want to. You don't have to."
She freezes again, her chest tightening again, but for such different reasons. Much different reasons. She turns to look at him, her eyes wide, her heart pounding, staring directly back into the boy's unfazed grey eyes, locked there as if cemented. Something in her heart swells. The soup is burning, she can smell it, but she doesn't even try to save it.
This is worth any punishments Lucius Malfoy can give her.
For she was right.
Because nothing will ever, never ever be the same anymore.
And this time, she's alright with that.
Draco's never seen the punishments of a house-elf, and while his curiousity at the subject reigned up now and then, now he regrets ever knowing.
It's Draco's ninth birthday, and he's currently having a nice evening with his parents and some other families his father has connections to. The adults are talking, but Draco does not bother to figure out what about because, in all respect, he doesn't care in the slightest. He's having more fun right now, laughing almost cruelly as he watches Goyle mess with that stupid Parkinson girl, who looks quite ready to hex him right out of this Manor, if not Britain itself, while he continues to joke and taunt her with that other boy, Crabbe. Zabini watches without expression, simply raising an eyebrow in exasperation when Crabbe nudges him with his elbow, trying to get a reaction. Draco just rolls his eyes.
Suddenly the kitchen door swings open and out comes a large, five-layer chocolate cake with white frosting and sprinkles and candies placed all around. Dark green icing spells out "Happy Birthday, Draco!" on the top of the monstrosity.
Immediately, all of children, with the exception of Zabini, who looks as if he couldn't care less, are silent, watching the cake with wide eyes, their mouths watering just looking at it. The adults just raise their eyebrows at the thing, looking disapproving.
Though, when Draco thinks about it, they look quite like that, well, all the time.
Mabry, to Draco's delight, pops her head out from behind the cake, looking around the cake to find the table, her brow starting to become slick with sweat, and starts over, teetering under the weight of the large desert, trying her best not to drop the treat.
It doesn't work.
She's halfway to the table when she slips on the waxed floor, toppling. And then she's falling, falling, falling...
And with a splat, both Mabry and the cake slam into the floor, spilling cake everywhere and ruining the wonderful desert.
"MABRY!"Lucius shouts, looking angry. "What have you done, you stupid thing?"
Draco starts a bit through his disappointment. He's never heard his father talk to her that roughly before. No one else looks suprised; their faces are filled with either haughtiness or even heavier disappointment than the birthday boy himself.
"I- I- I-" She stammers, wringing her hands, her whole body coated in cake. "I'm sorry, Master, so sorry, so sorry!"
"Punishments, Mabry, and then the lot of you will remake the cake," barks Lucius. "Now, creature, now!"
For an elongated moment, as if time has frozen, Mabry looks utterly horrified.
And then she's across the room and her hands are in the fire.
Draco wants to scream out, his eyes wide with horror as he watches Mabry sob, the flames slowly licking at her skin, at her fingers. He nearly does too, but then he's distracted by the others.
Because no one else looks horrified.
The adults simply watch with raised eyebrows as the elf half-screams in agonizing pain. Zabini and Parkinson watch with less than no interest, as if it were something they had seen a thousand times. Crabbe and Goyle just stare solemnly at the ruined cake, ignoring the abuse.
After a minute or so, his father stops her, telling her in a normal voice now to return to the kitchen to remake the cake, even bigger and better than the last. Mabry pulls her hands out of the fire, tears still running down her face, and runs to the kitchen door. Draco sees a quick glimpse of black, charred flesh, but then she's gone, the kitchen door swinging closed.
In half an hour, a different house-elf brings the new eight-layer cake out, complete with more frosting, more sprinkles, more candies. The children look delighted. The adults look disgusted.
Draco... Draco just looks dreadful, and unbearably sad. Not to mention slightly horrified.
None of them seem to notice.
No one seems to notice the sobbing still coming from the kitchen either.
Except Draco.
And that night, when they've all gone home and Draco's parents are asleep, Mabry enters Draco's room, her eyes bloodshot and puffy and her hands wrapped in layer after layer of bandages, and she stares in suprise at Draco, who is sitting wide awake in the rocking chair with a blanket about his shoulders and a book in his hands.
He points at the bed.
He tells her he's going to read the story tonight.
And Mabry, so filled with sadness and terror, just smiles.
It's sheer bad luck when Lucius Malfoy finally hears his own son apologize to the help.
Draco's in his room, helping her clean it. She's told him before, respectfully of course, even though in private she's still allowed to call him just 'Draco', that it isn't his job, that this is what she's employed -enslaved- for, but he continuously tell her that he doesn't mind, with his still-cute, ten-year-old smile, because he actually likes to help. She doesn't complain.
Much.
He's bringing her a stack of books when he trips on his plush green rug, sending books sprawling everywhere. One hits her in the head as he hits the rug, both responding with an "Oooph!"
Draco looks up, blinking, then hurriedly jumps up, recollecting the books into his arms as she rubs her forehead.
"Sorry!" Draco cries quietly. "Mabry, I'm so sorry!"
The door bangs open with a loud slam before she can even look at him. They both whip their heads around.
Lucius Malfoy is standing in the doorway, hair slightly dishevled, eyes crazed, his mouth contorted in a snarl. His walking stick has fallen to the ground, hitting the ground with a loud clunck. His expression, his body language, everything about his presence screams unbottled rage. Mabry's eyes widen and Draco pales.
He has heard. And he isn't happy.
"ELF!"He yells, echoing loudly in the room. "My office! NOW!"
Draco looks around to stare at Mabry, who stares back. Draco looks scared, but Mabry looks absolutely terrified, fear coating her wide eyes, ignorant toward the slowly growing red bump on her forhead. They lock gazes, and in that instant there's some sort of awful understanding between them, as if this was the last time they would ever see each other.
It's an unspoken truth.
"OUT!"
She jumps and then, with a final glance at Draco, she goes through the door, past Lucius and out of Draco's sight. Lucius glares at his son, who cowers on the carpet.
"We will discuss this later,"his father hisses at Draco before slamming the door with another tremendous bang.
The room is silent for a long moment before Draco finally starts shaking, the fear settling in. He curls into a ball on the carpet, arms locked around his legs, his face shoved into his knees as the tears start to cascade down his face, flowing like waterfalls. He stays there for a long time, the only sound in the room the sound of his sobbing, and eventually he rocks himself into a stiff sleep on the rug.
Mabry does not return.
The next morning, when Draco recieves his ten whippings for "showing weakness to a foul creature", he is silent. He sleeps in so late that the fire is already burning when he wakes. He spends the day locked in his room, reading 'The Tale of the Three Brothers', glaring at the book as he reads of their stupid, quite mortal-like wishes. He sits back as the new house-elf cleans every inch of his room. He pretends he can't see the elf at dinner when it serves him his roast and potatoes, even though he would prefer onion soup. He speaks stiffly and politely to his parents, just as they do to everyone else they know. He tucks himself in that night, with no request to the open air if it has a new story for him tonight.
And he just watches, snot-nosed and teary-eyed, as the other house-elves bury that little black box in the ground outside his window.
So, really sad at the end :( Just for reference, this story is about five years leading up to Draco's eleventh birthday, in which he got a particular letter to a quite specific school. I think this story is kind of an AU fic almost, because it's about this motherly house-elf that Draco comes to love, and at the end when she's gone, he kind of hardens his heart, turning to a personality like his parents, and that really effects his mannerisms as he goes through school.
Virtual cookie if you understood the foreshadowing and allusioning during the Cinderella part ;)