"She's incapacitated. We will not have him causing her trouble; his presence is detrimental to her health. Take him."

******

And the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or so my mother says as she holds him, purring at him, clutching at him as if he were her lifeline – this wispy strawberry-haired child wiggling in her arms.

He's been squalling a bit, and I await the moment his short gasps will turn into that piercing wail I have come to associate with the nights. Small and ugly, his limbs move as if he has no control over them, frog-like, more amphibian than human.

There is nothing endearing about him, I have decided. We have had him for a month and there is not one thing attractive about him. He drools consistently and, despite being of my flesh, a very unattractive character. His head falls for he has no control; it must be constantly supported.

My mother looks at him with a joyous look in her eyes, almost as if this product of your misery we have living under our roof is wonderful.

As if he were a gift of some sort for her to mold, a small miracle as she enters her middle age, regretful of accomplishing her goal – the heir- her first attempt.

He resembles me. The same thin nose, almost lipless mouth, the same virulent expression, but I see you in him also – the overly large cheeks that have since fattened up, the dark eyes. It was obvious when I opened the door to the Manor and saw your bedraggled brother – the tall one, the Dragon Wrestler or whatever uncouth profession he associates himself with - clutching him, pushing him into my hands as if my child were a sack of potatoes.

It was instant recognition, staring down at him. Did that scare you when they first laid him in your hands? Did you touch him? Did he haunt you in your dreams or did you pretend he didn't exist? Was it easier to pretend Potter had fathered him or did looking into his eyes bring back memories of those nights I spent with you against your will?

Your brother said you were incapacitated. Is that the story they are spreading about the wizarding community? I heard differently, my sweet Ginny, I heard you never fed him, you never touched him, that your parents rushed you to St. Mungo's not three weeks after the delivery for fear of you doing something radical to either yourself or the child. You cried non-stop, the Healer had told my father, you muttered the nonsensical, remained in your birthing bed for one whole week after having the child, howled for no reason whenever your mother brought him around you to be fed. You did nothing productive with the child except for naming him: Creighton, your mother said. It reminded of you of a disease that disables people, which he, in fact, did to you.

All of Diagon Alley knew you were in the hospital, that you'd borne the bastard, that you wouldn't tell anybody the identity of the father. Some suspected that he had been the product of a sexual violation of sorts – this, of course, would account for the unhealthy way to which you had responded to the child – but others, others who knew what traitors your pathetic family was to the pureblooded, believe that you were nothing but a sullied woman. That the child was the product of some sort of lower-class liaison not befitting your age or social status.

Oh, how the truth juxtaposes the rumor – how the actual father of your child was someone most witch debutantes would have loved to have a liaison with.

And, this, of course, would be true, that you had been violated, except that your father had ended the story differently. His story didn't end with your offspring being raised by the reluctant father, breaking a vow in the process. It didn't end with me holding this… outcome in my hands on my front stoop. No, your father's version of the story ended with the child dying tragically by some mysterious malady. The story ended simply enough, with a young girl's unwanted offspring finding perhaps an appropriate fate.

Except you broke your part of our bargain. You may be incapacitated, but this did not prevent you from revealing my name to your father, did it?

This did not prevent you from sending your large brother to turn the supposedly deceased child over to my guardianship, did it? This did not prevent you from giving my mother a purpose or my father another thorn in his side?

Let me tell you that my father is none too pleased about having him at the Manor – but then he never thought your mother would have performed the Paternus Charm on her first child, and that his seed had impregnated her. My father threatened to tell the wizarding world about Crouch if your mother and father did not take Creighton back into the folds of your pathetic clan, but your mother is nothing, if not determined.

I saw the triumphant glint in her eyes as she regaled us with the proof she had kept for so many decades – that the child who would grow up to be Bartemius Crouch, Jr. was our mutual sibling. She had her child's proof of paternity, and laughed as my father attempted to find common ground. Yes, my father could reveal that your mother had given birth to a child prior to her marriage, that she had in fact given birth to a Death Eater of all things, but she would not hesitate to reveal that the much-revered Lucius Malfoy had seduced an innocent woman bewitched by the Dark Arts, fathered said child, then spirited the baby away before she could do anything.

My father had severely underestimated your mother. And as a result, I am sharing a domicile with a child in whose life I never expected to play a role. This child whose very presence drove you into fits of misery. Creighton will grow up steadfast in the fact he is my son. Truth be told, the child has been living in doors for the past month, there has been no need to explain his presence at the Manor - but he is mine. No one will know that he is the deceased Weasley grandchild.

I will spare him that indignity, thank you.

I am the victor, my unconscious belladonna. You can do whatever it takes, keep yourself in the psychiatric ward swimming in euphoria - the product of all those potions and elixirs you consume - for all eternity, and you will never escape the fact that I had my way with you. That I took your innocence and gave you a child. You will never forget the late night torment and the anxiety and the shame. You are a shadow of your former self, and whether I lay eyes on you ever again, it will not make one bit of difference. I drove you to it. Creighton exists, and so does your never ending shame.

My mother has this doll sitting on the mantle, she often stares at it: it has a blue Victorian dress with a large skirt and bright red hair. I used to take so much pleasure in attempting to knock it over only because I knew my mother cherished it. It reminded her of better times, before she was a wife and mother, full of lament, when she used to play dolls with Andromeda and Bellatrix, back in a time when the sun never set and smiles lived on her full, red lips. Rushing over to a bawling Creighton, she knocked it off the side table where it had sat from decades, breaking it instantly. It had entertained her for eons, and in a matter of moments, it was irreparable, no spell could fix it.

Destroyed.

Broken.

Just as I have broken the girl.

Author's Note: As usual, dedicated to Isa. The child's name, Creighton ("Cray-ton"), is a Gaelic boy's name, meaning "near the creek." Ginny's reasoning is in truth my reason for choosing it, as it resembles cretin, which, out of Merriam-Webster's dictionary, literally means one afflicted with cretinism, a condition "characterized by physical stunting and mental retardation." I was surprised to also find out that one of the meanings of cretin in English literature is "a wretch, an innocent victim," which is the role that Creighton does indeed play.

Draco's description of Creighton ("unattractive," "his frog-like actions") actually come from Queen Victoria of England's diaries in which she addressed her distaste for her own infants.