A Lestrange, the world believes.
A Riddle, the world would call her.
A Gaunt, her parents would say.
His Heiress, her father said.
Her Master's daughter and so her most prized possession, her mother said.
A Pure-blood child of a Sacred Twenty-Eight Family, the world thinks.
A Black, truthfully. Bastards take on the mothers' maiden names. Heiress to nothing but the horrors of war. Not a prized possession of a mad witch though.
A Half-Blood that holds the last drops of the blood of Black and Gaunt, names she will never carry down the lines of wizarding aristocracy. For she will never know. How her ancestors must twist and turn in their graves. The Purest of families united because a Muggle man under a potion conceived a child with someone thought to be a Squib... Somewhere, someone is having a laugh at that. Dumbledore probably.
She is none of that. She is a star, a pure piece of light in the night sky, graciously making her way amongst the others. She is also something else; it's there, just beneath the surface, but unknown for now.
She is Delphini, of the Malfoy family. Not exactly one of them, but theirs. Draco knows that now, even if it is the only thing he knows. She is theirs.
He walks upstairs in the dark house. He knows every corridor, every wall and every shadow. But he is afraid. So very afraid. He decides he cannot hold her anymore, not now. So his steps become brisk, stopping only inside the nursery. There is a hint of her crib in the moonlight. He leaves her there, in deep slumber, under the veil, both cloth and magic, that keeps her safe. He steps back and panic invades him. What have I done?
He retreats to the door, as quietly as he can. She cannot wake right now. He could not help her, for as much as he cares for her, as much as he loves her, he is afraid.
He runs from her like he is running for his life. He feels like he is running to keep sane. He makes it to his room faster than back when he was five and feared the dark corridors. He fears himself tonight. She is supposed to be Lord Voldemort's augury, how can that be anything but an augury of destruction? Maybe she was the augury of His destruction; we were destroyed already by the time she came along. But what if she isn't? What if she does bring destruction?
He locks his door, wards it, and silences it. Then, he is a Malfoy unbound, spiralling out of control. His room is alight with magic, and he does not stop until there is nothing left. He is responsible for keeping the Dark Lord's child under this roof. His Father did not want her and his Mother would let her go the second he said he didn't want her there. She would have found another family to keep her safe and she would visit, but she would not further torture him with that child's presence here. Not after witnessing the effect her Father had on him.
He had decided to keep her. Alive. And he thinks he has made a grave mistake. He would never kill her, he could never kill a baby, and he could never kill family. But what if keeping her meant condemning his parents? What if trying to keep that last promise standing meant giving up the remainder of his family? What have you done?
He sits in the midst of the remnants of his bedroom. Eyes looking but not seeing, his mind going over every possibility he can think of. The Malfoys have fallen, but how deep will they be when upon landing? He wants to believe she is just an innocent infant but how can he fool himself? Delphini's first response to danger is to hurt people, for crying out loud!
He decides the house-elf must not see this mess. She could mention all of it to his Mother and that will not do. She could mention a tiny bit of it to his Father and that will most definitely not do. He picks up his wand and starts repairing. His clothes stitch back together in the air. His furniture goes back to its place and is in one piece again. He uses the time to organize his mind, to put everything to rights there too. What have you done?
What if Potter is right? He shudders at the notion, but it might just be true. Power is her nature, but they can nurture her into something more. Hurting people is all she could do. She felt danger in the air and defended herself and her family. In the only way she has been shown. Violence. Pain. Evil. He shudders again at that. They promised they would teach her. He will. He will show her love, and care, and good, and light. He will make sure she learns. He will never deny her darkness, but he will keep her from giving in.
Theirs, he thinks once more. He knows that. And she will know light. She will be theirs; she is theirs right now, no matter whose she used to be. Whose she will always be, deep down, in her very core. For he will build around that core, not hiding it but steadying it. She may never know of her roots, but she will know her ground.
She is theirs. She will grow under Mother's loving gaze, under Father's proud smirk at her magical abilities, under Draco's overprotective care. Theirs to worry about and theirs to love. Theirs.