January 25th

Even if the vial that contained the memory had not been dug out from under a wall that was several centuries old, Hermione would have easily concluded that the people now before her had lived far, far back in the past. It wasn't just the style of decorations (very heavy on the gold and ornaments) or the ladies' dress (very heavy on the ruffles and bows and with narrow waists and elaborate wigs), but also the fact that such furnishings and such a style of dress were used for an event such as the one they had stumbled into.

Hermione held Lucius by one hand, and Draco by the other. She wasn't sure what her soon-to-be-stepson thought about that, but she'd done it quite spontaneously and had no intention of letting go. It was unclear even to herself whether she had done it for them or for her, but it felt good to hold them both. Their warm, steady hands were like anchors that steadied her when they dove into the grey mists of the pensieve.

At first, they had found themselves in a dimly lit corridor, outside an ornate door, where a young woman stood silently waiting. She had fair hair and regular features, and had pulled a warm shawl close around her to ward her from the chill in the drafty corridor. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved silently, as if she was deep in prayer. Suddenly, Hermione had realised that beneath the shawl, the woman held an infant. It's cheek was pressed against her chest, with its mouth half-open in sleep. Something tugged at Hermione's heart at the sight. Soon, she told herself, unable to hold back a feeling of longing. She too would have a baby soon.

She glanced at Lucius, whose thoughts seemed to have taken a similar bend. They they shared a slight smile, while Draco stayed silent and impassive by their side.

Thus far, the corridor had been silent, but they were suddenly startled by a drawn out wail, coming from behind the closed doors. Someone seemed to be in great pain, and Hermione held on tighter to her companions. The wail was eventally replaced by mumbling - soothing at first, but then gradually more excited.

This seemed to be the signal the young woman in the corridor had waited for. She straightened her back, raised her wand in preparedness, breathed deeply and then opened the door. Lucius, Draco and Hermione followed her effortlessly inside and through what appeared to be a small private dressing room until they entered a stately bedchamber.

Hermione felt Draco shift uncomfortably beside her. That wasn't particularly surprising given that a woman, half-lying on a rich four-post bed in the centre of the room, was naked from the waist down. During ordinary circumstances, the woman in question would surely have been deemed a beauty. He features were delicate, her hair long and dark - perfecty matching her dark soulful eyes. But at the moment, she was sweaty and exhausted, breathing heavily and whimpering in pain. The reason was obvious: her legs were spread and between her legs Hermione was sure she saw the crown of a baby's skull. The woman was in labour, seemingly in-between her final contractions.

The woman giving birth was, of course, not alone in the room. She had three companions, occupied with either soothing her, preparing fresh linen for the baby or pouring a glass of wine (whether for the suffering woman or for herself was unclear). Hermione fancied one of them must be the midwife and the other two either friends or family members. All of them looked up in astonishment as the door closed behind the intruding woman, still holding her infant protectively in her arms.

The four ladies' expressions quickly morphed from surprise into recognition, and then into alarm, but they had no time to react. With one sweep of her wand, the intruding young woman stunned them all - even the woman in labour. Hermione felt sure that in her case the pain of the contractions would soon break through her stupor. Whatever the intruding woman had come to do, she didn't have more than a few seconds to do it - and she obviously knew it. She determinedly strode over to the midwife and placed the baby, wrapped in simple white linen, into her arms. Caressing the infant's cheek one last time, the young woman stepped back and cast an invisibility spell over herself, before she apparently released the others from her spell.

The midwife blinked slowly with a confounded look on her face, before she automatically looked down at the infant in her arms. Her face was then filled with joy, as she exlaimed to the woman giving bith: "My lady, it is a son!"

When she looked up at the woman on the bed, however, she frowned as if something didn't quite add up, but her eyes soon widened in surprise as she gasped: "Goodness me, another one is coming!"

The infant, now awake but following the proceedings with the sort of calm interest only a small child can possess, was handed to the woman with the wine glass as the midwife quickly attended to the woman giving birth. Hermione watched with horrified fascination as that woman, with a pained and elongated moan, forced out the baby from her body with a last push. The growing fear of having to go through that herself was quickly morphed into something else at the sight of the new mother's relief, joy and pride as the two babies after a few minutes were finally handed to her.

Perhaps it was the effect of the magic the intruding woman had performed, easily forgotten even by Hermione after she had made herself invisible, but none of the women seemed to find anything out of the ordinary in the situation at hand. They took care of the placenta, cleaned the newborn and handed wine to the recently delivered woman without appearing to reflect upon the fact that the so-called first born was squeaky clean and the stump of umbilical cord attached to its navel had already shrunken and darkened.

When things had settled down, and the women began to speak of informing the father of the happy turn of events and of getting the wet nurse, they all stilled again with the same absent looks on their faces as earlier. The young woman reappeared from her invisibility spell and stepped toward the two babies, now resting by the new mother's chest. She raised her wand and, first turning to her own son, began a complicated set of spells that Hermione had never heard of. When finished, the woman stepped forward and whispered "I'm sorry", kissing the boy gently. She then turned to perform a similar set of spells on the other child.

With tears running freely down her cheeks, the woman turned her back to the inhabitants of the room, took a shuddering breath, swallowed hard and bit her lip in determination. Then, without a backwards glance, she left the room.

The countours of the environment grew hazy as the mists of the pensieve began to reach for them, but the last thing Hermione heard was the midwife's voice as she cooed:

"How blessed you have been, Lady Malfoy - two sons!"

Those two boys, considered twins, could only be the sons of one man: Septimus Malfoy. And what they had witnessed today had been the beginning of the curse on the Malfoy line. The curse that Lucius had unknowingly ended.

In the short space of time between leaving the memory and landing in their own time, several questions presented themselves to Hermione. Apart from the matter of who the woman was and why she had given up her child, one could only wonder why she had put him in the path of wealth and prosperity only to curse his bloodline? And why had she preserved this memory for the afterworld? Why would she preserve proof against her son's claims to the title? And why had the memory resurfaced right now? Was it mere coincidence, or had it been waiting for the right time - waiting for the curse to be broken?

Malfoy.

Lucius's mind was spinning. The woman giving birth had once been Lady Malfoy!

The rooms they had entered in the memory had seemed strangely familiar to him, which now made perfect sense. They had visited Malfoy Manor, his own hom of many years, in what looked like the late 1700s. The rooms had been redecorated several times since then, and Lucius had not exactly been a regular guest in the mistress's chambers neither while his mother lived nor when they were occupied by Narcissa, but he knew them well enough. And in those rooms, as he had just been made a witness to, a usurper had been introduced into the Malfoy line.

As soon as their feet were firmly planted on the floor of his office at the Tower, Lucius released Hermione's hand and stepped away from her and Draco. A usurper in the Malfoy line. Lucius's entire body felt rigid. He felt like a steel spring, compressed and eager to unleash his anger at anything, anyone in his way. Clenching his fists, Lucius began stalking about the room, endeavouring to keep himself from exploding.

Who was that woman, and what right did she have to reduce the rightful heir to the status of a second son, putting her own bastard son before him? Lucius scoffed at himself at the question. Who she was? He already knew: she was his ancestor!

For a moment, Lucius wanted to believe that it didn't matter. That the so-called firstborn had died, like so many children did back then, leaving the second, or even third or fourth son to inherit. But he knew better. He knew whose wife that was and who had called himself their father.

The silence in the room was suffocating. All he could hear was hs own footsteps, but he felt Hermione's and Draco's eyes upon him. Instead of addressing them, however, he stopped to glare accusingly at the portraits covering the walls.

"Did you know about this?" he growled. "Did you know the whitch who introduced her own offspring into the Malfoy line?"

The paintings had been silenced a long time ago, after their incessant chatter had tried Lucius's nerves beyond their limit, but he could plainly see their looks of horror, disgust, surprise and anger. None of them seemed able to offer an explanation, and the only one who might have offered Lucius some insight into the matter was absent. Septimus's only known portrait had failed to survive a fire at the Manor in 1851.

Lucius scoffed at them and continued to pace the room, pausing in front of his desk.

"That woman –" Hermione began hesitantly, but cut herself off when Lucius slammed his fist onto the desk with a loud bang.

She was standing by the pensieve, like a beacon of tranquility even when faced with Lucius's unhinged state. His palms pressed agains the smooth wooden surface of his desk as he breathed deeply. Her quietude invited him to calm down, but he could not do so without struggle. He was just so angry. So angry. And why wouldn't he be? His origins, his family pride, his inheritance and his title - it was all a lie. He was never supposed to enjoy them, neither was his father or grandfather. Nor Draco. Lucius dared scarcely look at his son, who hadn't moved an inch since they returned from the pensieve.

Pulling out his chair and sitting down heavily on it, he pressed his palms to his face. Would there be no end to the surprises? Whether in the past or the present, things never seemed to be what he thought they were.

"That woman", Lucius finally replied, his voice cold and crisp, "whoever she was -" He shook his head in anger, not daring to continue. He and his son were the decendants of a changeling.

Lucius abruptly stood up again. He couldn't discuss this at the moment. He wasn't ready to search for nuances, see the other side, understand the motives. All the things that were right and proper. He felt like a child who had been expelled from their family, and all he wanted to do was to scream in defeat and humiliation.

He turned toward the door, and with a muttered excuse, he left the room.

The stars shone as brightly as they possibly could in a city polluted by lights and smog. He studied them intently, his vision of them disturbed only by the fog of his own slow breaths in the cool winter air. Astronomy had interested hin at school, he remembered. Perhaps he ought to pick it up again? Perhaps the stars could offer explanations to the strange twists of his fate?

The icy coldness of the stone battlement he was leaning against seeped through his cloak, and had long since cooled his anger. In its place was an overwhelming sense of loss. Emptiness.

The sound of a door opening and closing and the slow deliberate steps approaching him let Lucius know he was no longer alone. He kept his gaze fixed on the dark sky above him, however. He didn't bother looking down even when the footsteps halted right beside him.

"This sucks."

"Eloquently put as ever, Draco", Lucius muttered, "but I agree with the sentiment."

Throughout his life, Lucius had asked himself many times who exactly he was. In moments of weakness, he had even asked himself if he really was what he was supposed to be. There had been so much inconstancy in the span of his life: family members had come and gone, friends had come and (mostly) gone, his view of life had changed, his morals and his hopes for the future had transformed. Things he'd known to be true had turned out not to be. Things he'd been convinced he could and should do had turned out to be completely meaningless.

The only thing that had been constant had been his lineage, his heritage, his family history. Whether in his dark days or with his altered moral compass, he had never deemed his ancestors to be perfect. Some of their actions had filled him with shame, no matter which set of standards he was judging from at the moment. But they had been his ancestors. His proud, coolheaded, passionate, powerful and very relatable ancestors. Now, all of a sudden, they weren't. Or, at least, since the late 1700s, none of them had truly been a Malfoy other than by name.

"Father?"

"Draco."

Draco hesitated, and Lucius dragged his gaze from the stars over to his son, who was lookin gout over the dark Thames with a thoughtful expression.

"What is a true Malfoy?" he finally asked. "You always instilled in me the importance of being a real Malfoy, and I knew I was supposed not to be weak, and to act superior to everyone else. But what was I supposed to be exactly? I never could grasp that."

Lucius was surprised, and something tightened uncomfortably in his chest, as visions of Draco as a boy flittered through his mind. Beside him right now was no boy, however, but a young man. Tall, strong, confident. The perfect Malfoy heir. And yet, there was something in his voice that told Lucius that the past had not yet been forgotten.

"I always thought I was a real Malfoy", Lucius answered slowly as he thought the question over. "I was definition enough in myself."

He frowned, and turning to that he stood beside his son, gazing out at the city below then. Lucius had deemed himself tall and powerful, known himself to be tall and pale, and thought that the weight if his inheritance fated him to be proud and to excel. Those qualities, combined with kinship and name, were what had defined a true Malfoy in his eyes. An idealized version of himself.

"I suppose I tried to mould you into a more perfect, more Malfoy-like version of myself", Lucius said quietly, saddened by his own actions.

Draco hummed. It was hard to tell what he was feeling, and he seemed to think things over quietly before he spoke: "I always thought being a Malfoy must mean being on your own. To wear this heavy cloak of expectation and restraint, not to trust anyone, and never being one others could trust."

Lucius let out a long breath. He'd felt it too.

"If we're not true Malfoys anyway", Draco suggested quietly, "perhaps we can start to change that."

"It's already started to change", Lucius sighed. "It started to change a long time ago. During the war, you began to change it with the choices you made."

"And you with Hermione?" Draco asked.

Lucius nodded.

He also remembered a past, a childhood when he had not been alone. When there had been trust. When he had a sister, who had been everything a Malfoy wasn't supposed to be: weak, wounded, timid, generous, small and dark - but who had nevertheless been a pure Malfoy in his eyes.

It wasn't the purity of his blood that bothered him. He discarded the idea that blood and birth was all that mattered. His pain, his sense of loss, was about kinship. About entitlement. To be a true descendant, a formal heir, had been an objective, an unquestionable argument. No matter how weak he had been, no matter how poor his decisions, or what humiliation he was forced to suffer - he had been one of them. One of the Malfoys. Entitled to their name, to be part of their history. To borrow from them: his history, his estate, the entire backstory to his life.

But then again, Lyra had been adopted. Her kinship with the Malfoys was based not on birth, but on choice. And she had unquestionably been his sister. Did it matter then, that he was not Septimus Malfoy's true descendant? He didn't know. Did it?

"I suspect we'll survive this too, Draco", Lucius said slowly.

Draco hummed in agreement. "But it still sucks."

"It hurts", Lucius corrected.

"Yeah", Draco sighed, "it does."

They stood for some time in silence, watching the stars above them. When they said goodbye, Lucius gave his son a hug. It was the first one since that awkward embrace at the Battle of Hogwarts, and unlike that one, it was reciprocated.

Thank you, Agnessa9 (guest reviewer), for expressing your appreciation for this story! 3