"In the common imaginary of the wizarding folks, the name Malfoy had always been synonym of high-status, power, immense riches and pedigree. An ancient family, arrived from France in the far 11th century, with a single value jealously protected: its purity. What else could be expected if the family motto was 'Sanctimonia Vincet Semper', purity will always conquer?
This obsessive preservation became, however, the sole reason of generations and generations of misery. One Malfoy after the other experienced what would take the name of the Malfoy Curse.
According to the rumours, the calamities started with Septimus Malfoy. The wizard lived in the 18th century and was a prominent and influential figure in the Ministry of Magic, reputed to be using Unctuous Osbert, the Minister of Magic at the time, as a tool. Many were the ones who envied him for his power, his riches and his apparently fortunate familial life, with a beautiful wife and two twin sons. It was enough for someone to jinx the entire bloodline, with only the loss of the blood purity as a cure for the hex to be lifted from the family.
Nothing much changed in Septimus' life, despite the alleged curse. His marriage with Alba Burke had already been quite precarious to start with. Arranged marriages tend to be like that. However, it became so difficult to interact, after the birth of the twins, that Alba decided to live in the opposite wing of Malfoy Manor, remaining secluded from the rest of the world. It continued like so until his death, at the age of 58.
After him, Aelius and Aemilius Malfoy, his twin sons, did not have a much simpler life. Their constant conflict prevented them from ever being attached to one another and this only worsened when Alba arranged Aelius' marriage with Clara Travers, the only girl whom Aemilius had ever loved. The heartbreak of seeing the woman he had feelings for united for life with his own brother, whom he hated with the most violent ardour, brought him, at first, to distance himself from his family and, then, kill Aelius the exact same day of his and Clara's son Cassian's birth. Fleeing again, Aemilius spent the following years roaming the continent without rest, feeling the deepest regret for having hurt Clara's heart, who had come, in the few years of marriage, to feel for her husband, whom she had vowed to avenge. And it was this that led her to kill Aemilius and, then, herself, after he had come back to make amends.
For generations, Malfoys kept on with their objective of keeping their blood 'clean', gossips to be damned. They were just speculations and, if something happened, it was soon labelled as a coincidence or an unfortunate accident.
Cassian's sickly nature; his wife Angelica's untimely death, caused by complications during childbirth; Cassian's consequent grief, which prevented him from ever caring for Livius, his child, who spent his early years in complete debauchery, until meeting the love of his life, Martha Avery; the death of Martha, which led to Livius' madness in trying to figure out how that had ever happened; the inertia and ineptitude of Martha and Livius' son Titus, which were enough to almost make him lose the entire Malfoy fortune, already meagre from Livius' early extravagance. All those happenings were classified as accidental.
It had almost seemed that with Abraxas Malfoy, Titus' son, the fatalities had diminished. He was able to rebuild the family name and its wealth. However, the supremacist tendencies, which characterised him, were going to cost so much more to his descendants than his father and grandfather's action had costed him. Then, adding insult to injury, he contracted the Dragon Pox.
Lucius Abraxas Malfoy took after his father in his strong blood supremacy beliefs, entangling his whole family with Voldemort and the Death Eaters. His life choices not only sullied the Malfoy name for years to come, but, also, put him, his wife Narcissa and his son Draco under the dominance of the Dark Lord.
Draco Lucius Malfoy had many hardships in his life: he was obliged to enter the ranks of the Death Eaters at a young age, in order to save his life and his family; after the war, he had to go through years and years of hard work, sacrifices and stigma to clear as much as he could the family's reputation, in order to give his wife Astoria and his son Scorpius a life as easy as it could be when your surname is one as infamous as Malfoy; his wife had had, after Scorpius, a miscarriage, leaving both of them devastated, especially Astoria, who tried to commit suicide and had to spend some years in St. Mungo's.
At first, it had also seemed that Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy's life was going to be doomed. It was the rule: Malfoys do not get to live an easy and merry life. His childhood, as a matter of fact, was not the happiest. He was the one to discover, at the age of six, the unconscious body of his mother in a pool of blood. However, something started to change in his first year at Hogwarts. That change had a rather long name: Rosaline Cornelia Jean Granger-Weasley.
No matter how their relationship was not the best at first, quite the opposite, truth to be told, they had been capable to put aside generations of unjust beliefs, prejudices and family feuds. Also, their union was finally what the Malfoy family needed to break the curse, considering Rose Granger-Weasley's half-blood status.
Jinx broken, the couple achieved two things unheard of Malfoys for centuries: a much larger offspring than a single male child, having had the sum of four children, and the first two Malfoy women in the family history, one being me and the other, my sister."
The fourteen year-old girl finished reading her essay out loud for her mother, bringing a wave of strawberry-blond hair behind her ear. "What do you think, mom?"
"Well, Hydra" started her mother, "it's very detailed and well written. Good job"
"You're so much like your mother" the light blond head of her dad popped from the half closed door of her room, chuckling lightly.
"And what's that supposed to mean, Scorpius?" Hydra watched her mom's freckly face turn towards him, eyebrows arched and blue ocean eyes narrowed in mock sternness.
"That you're both nerds" he entered the room and closed the door, leaning against it with his arms crossed over his chest and a teasing smile playing at his lips. He winked playfully at his wife.
She rolled her eyes, although its effect was completely nullified by her own small smile. "It's true that she's taken her intelligence and her love of studying from me, but you have to admit that the self-centeredness comes completely from your side"
"Hey!" Hydra commented, pretending to be offended, while her father simply laughed. She knew enough of her whole family's teasing nature than to take offense.
"You did answer the essay question about the history of a family with your own…" Rose Malfoy pointed out with a flip of her auburn hair.
Hydra grumbled lightly, not knowing how to respond to her mom's teasing. She had way more experience with witty comebacks.
"Was this your last assignment for the summer?"
"Yes"
"What about your siblings?"
"Lyra and Lynx have finished yesterday"
"Good, then, how about I send a letter to nana Astoria so you, Lyra, Lynx and Aries go spend your day at theirs?"
"Yes, daddy," Hydra exclaimed excitedly, "please"
"Alright, then," he smiled, kissing the top of her head and going towards his wife, placing his hand on the small of her back, "now, go to sleep, twinkle"
"Good night" she answered, climbing into her bed.
Walking in the direction of the master bedroom, Rose turned towards him. "What do you have in mind for tomorrow? It was quite sudden of you to propose them going to their grandparents' house"
"Well, I had in mind to attempt to defy the Malfoy curse some more" he whispered conspiratorially.
"Huh?" she asked, not really understanding what he meant.
"I know we already achieved something 'unheard of Malfoys'," he started, quoting his daughter's essay, "but I really think we should dream even bigger"
"Have you gone mad, Malfoy?" Rose stopped in front of their bedroom's door, looking at him as if he'd grown another head. "What the bloody hell are you even on about?"
"How about I just show you, Malfoy" he smirked at her, using her married name with the smuggest tone he could muster.
In a second, he pressed her against the door, kissing her fervently, while his hands run down her body, stopping on her stomach. "I want to knock you up again" he whispered against her lips, before resuming his heated attack to her lips, pushing the door open and stumbling them inside their room.