As midnight descended on Malfoy manor, the Lord himself went stalking away down the darkened corridors, his long hair floating out behind him, as visible in the gloom as his starkly white shirt. His boots made no sound on the carpet and he surprised a house-elf, giving it an absent kick that sent it scuttling out of danger.
Behind him, the door of the Silent Room stood open, and all the more uninviting for the strange weeping that echoed out.
Still, the boy—being reared in this strange home with these strangers as mother and father—crept towards it, his courage not lessened by the sick apprehension that gripped his gut.
Like a shadow on the landing he skirted the corner and made his way to the door he'd seen his father quit. With a worried glance in the direction of his father's suites, he gave the door a gentle nudge and slipped soundlessly inside.
Remarkably calm for one so young, he gazed at the form of his mother, face-down on the floor and weeping. He was not so moved by it, this vision of his mother's torn and bleeding back. Even at his youthful age, he was used to seeing such things that his father's cruelty and his mother's viciousness could conspire to create. This horror, then, was not so very much.
"Lucius," she sobbed, lifting her head, and began laughing suddenly. Her head whipped around and saw him there in the doorway, a slight and silent figure with large, empty eyes. "My darling boy! My light! Come here, to me! Come to mother!"
Sensing danger, the boy took a step back, shaking his head in negation.
She hissed at him, her fair features contorting for a frightening second—ravenous and irrationally angry. But then they fell back into the usual luminous, flawlessly beautiful face he had seen from the day he was born.
"I said, 'Come to me!'" she pleaded, pulling herself around in a way that was almost serpentine.
He took another step back and started when he bumped into something. Looking quickly backwards, he saw his father looking down at him with coolly appraising grey eyes, a cloak dangling in his hand.
"Now, now, Draco," he said, his tone mellow, his features shuttered on some secret. "Haven't I warned you about being out and about in the Manor after midnight?"
"Yes, sir," he said. He did not stutter. He did not shake when his father's hand rested lightly and menacingly on his shoulder. He had learned to live with fear from the cradle, was fed it with his mother's milk, and had learned it at the hand of this man so very adept at the games he played. Somewhere in the depths of his mind he understood that he was being groomed to take his father's place, and the thought inspired no true revulsion, only a resigned numbness and a strange sense of thrilling power.
"What on earth are you doing in here?" Lord Malfoy asked, his tone still mild and conversational, though his hand seemed to clench tighter on his son's shoulder. Neither of them looked at the mostly nude woman laying on the floor, shivering in her own cooling blood, her sapphire eyes watching the both of them with sharp, wary attentiveness.
"I heard something, sir," Draco answered, solemn. His classmates would not have recognized him, had they seen him, this pale and fey young man. There was no one here to bully, to tease, no one here to turn on and vent his fears and cruelties nurtured in the womb of this house he would some day be master of. There was just him—a boy not quite a man and still lost as a little child—and the people who had raised him, perhaps, as best as they knew how.
Lord Malfoy made no comment, merely assessed his son with his too-knowing eyes. Finally, his tone softer than Draco had ever heard it in his life, he said, "Go embrace your mother, Draco—she's had a rather trying night."
The boy swallowed hard, knowing a test when he saw one. Would he break and flee, trusting in his father's continued indulgence? Or would he do as he was bidden and gain a sliver more of his father's respect, a miniscule amount of his father's regard?
He glanced back at his mother, still beautiful, even in her tattered clothing and wounds, her eyes tranquil. There was a tremulous quality about her now, an air of fragility that had always moved him, since the time he was a toddler and dreamed great dreams of rescuing her and making her a queen. Child's dreams, but he still cared for her, having spent the majority of his time as her most treasured and jealously guarded possession.
There was a power shift in the air, he could sense it, and had enough of his father in him to pick the winning side.
Swallowing hard, he knelt down at Narcissa's side and gently pulled her up into his arms, closing his eyes as her familiar scent surrounded him. It was something exotic and expensive that his father bought her once a year, a scent that meant attention and a rabid, over-protective affection. The tendrils of her hair tickled his nose as he settled his eyes into the crook of her neck. His hands slid in the slick, cool blood on her back but she made no complaint of pain. She crooned to him as she had when he was a baby and stroked his hair.
"My darling," she sighed, her arms surprisingly strong as she hugged him. "My only one! Are you alright, dearest? Did you have a nightmare? Do you want mother to come and sit with you?"
"No, mother, I'm fine," Draco assured her, feeling somehow stained by her blood. "I just heard you crying."
"Crying?" she echoed, and gave that sultry, throaty laughter that he so adored. "Why, darling, I was doing no such thing! Your father was teasing me, you know how he teases."
"Yes," Draco lied, aware with every fiber of his being of his father watching them, his hawkish gaze taking in the minute details of their interaction, looking for some telling indicator of something he suspected. He cast his lot in with the woman who had always protected him and fervently asked, "You're hurt, aren't you? Do you need me to help—"
"Draco," Lucius said, his tone unchanged but holding now a menace that was absent before. "That's quite enough."
The boy reluctantly stood, pulling his mother up with him. She was all smiles and tears of joy, raining kisses on his face, smearing his mouth with faint traces of her blood. He stepped away from her and looked at his father.
"One more second of that and you'd be as hysterical as your mother," Lord Malfoy said, and moved to swirl the cloak over his wife's shoulders with all of the graceful flair of an illusionist. He bent and swept her up into his arms with one sudden move, ignoring the kiss she pressed to his jaw. "Go back to your room, Draco."
"Will she be alright?" he asked, his anxiety for her overriding his usual self-possession.
"It does not concern you!" Lucius sharply said, and strode out into the dark hallway with Narcissa gazing longingly over his shoulder at her son. "And close that door behind you!"
Draco repressed his concern and took himself off to his room, making sure that the door was securely shut in his wake.
