Title: Le Plus Faible
Author: Meg Kenobi (afirmation@aol.com)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Sorry.
Author's note: Disturbing piece here, kids. Just enjoy and review and please tell me if you think the rating ought to be higher. Sorry this chapter is so short. The next chapter is close behind.
Le Plus Faible
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All of Lucius' anger did not matter, though. I placed my infant daughter in my son's arms and new I'd found some peace. Draco opened in a way he never had before. Even his unrelenting silence was made lighter. He made himself into a mock father for his little sister. I let him push her around the nursery in the pram--Lucius would not stand for his embarassment to be wheeled around the streets. The nursery is a different sort of room though and it did Draco good to pass his time in such a place. When pregnant with Draco, I couldn't bear the thought of bringing my baby home to one of the dreary, dank rooms of the Malfoy Manor. Instead I had the room painted a pale yellow and the dark stained glass windows with clear panes. It would grow to be the only room in the Manor where my heart did not feel weighted with darkness. I understood too well what drew Draco back to the sunlight of that room and the promise of the infant child.
Lucius seemed as repulsed by the sight of our daughter as Draco was enchanted. The girl had been born with my thick, yellow hair instead of the Malfoy white-blonde. Her eyes, like mine, were a dark hazel, not pale and clear like her father and brother. I could see the gears grind in my husband's mind, convincing himself that this pallid, flailing creature could not possibly be his. He had made up his reasons to hate her and to hate me more. I made my own petty retaliations. If the child was not a Malfoy, then she needn't have a Malfoy family name. I named her Bella instead, a name from my family. The name of a courageous woman I doubted even he could denounce.
While Lucius was far from kind to our baby, he was not cruel. Sometimes he even seemed to appreciate the child he had labeled a bastard. The first two months passed silently. I was accoustumed to Lucius being cold and distant and his further withdrawl did not strike me as noteworthy. I should have sensed the passing time as the calm before the cyclone, but in my mind I was trying so desperately to see it as a good omen. Draco was coming out from that place with in himself that I could not reach. Even though I knew it to be wrong, I could not help but think I had found an answer. Here was someone for Draco to pour his heart into, and he himself was a tiny father for my little girl. The days we spent together seemed idyllic and we seemed beyond the legacy of horror that had tormented my life thus far. If only I could have removed my husband from the equation. If only I had the strength to do so.
It was a hard time at the Ministry in those days. My husband walked a precarious line, trying to run his department as an alleged Death Eater. He had to strike the difficult balance of suffocating rumors without betraying his Dark Lord. While he would never have admitted it, the stress was terrible for him. He realized he could no longer command respect by his reputation. Instead he had to do so by force and intimidation. More and more his hostilities and frustrations spilled into my life and our home. He had been passing his evenings with co-orkers at the Minataur, a bar on Knockturn Alley. He came home so many nights heavy with the stink of fire-whiskey and an opressive air of fury, the way he came home that fateful night.
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Thank you! Please review!
Author: Meg Kenobi (afirmation@aol.com)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Sorry.
Author's note: Disturbing piece here, kids. Just enjoy and review and please tell me if you think the rating ought to be higher. Sorry this chapter is so short. The next chapter is close behind.
Le Plus Faible
----------------
All of Lucius' anger did not matter, though. I placed my infant daughter in my son's arms and new I'd found some peace. Draco opened in a way he never had before. Even his unrelenting silence was made lighter. He made himself into a mock father for his little sister. I let him push her around the nursery in the pram--Lucius would not stand for his embarassment to be wheeled around the streets. The nursery is a different sort of room though and it did Draco good to pass his time in such a place. When pregnant with Draco, I couldn't bear the thought of bringing my baby home to one of the dreary, dank rooms of the Malfoy Manor. Instead I had the room painted a pale yellow and the dark stained glass windows with clear panes. It would grow to be the only room in the Manor where my heart did not feel weighted with darkness. I understood too well what drew Draco back to the sunlight of that room and the promise of the infant child.
Lucius seemed as repulsed by the sight of our daughter as Draco was enchanted. The girl had been born with my thick, yellow hair instead of the Malfoy white-blonde. Her eyes, like mine, were a dark hazel, not pale and clear like her father and brother. I could see the gears grind in my husband's mind, convincing himself that this pallid, flailing creature could not possibly be his. He had made up his reasons to hate her and to hate me more. I made my own petty retaliations. If the child was not a Malfoy, then she needn't have a Malfoy family name. I named her Bella instead, a name from my family. The name of a courageous woman I doubted even he could denounce.
While Lucius was far from kind to our baby, he was not cruel. Sometimes he even seemed to appreciate the child he had labeled a bastard. The first two months passed silently. I was accoustumed to Lucius being cold and distant and his further withdrawl did not strike me as noteworthy. I should have sensed the passing time as the calm before the cyclone, but in my mind I was trying so desperately to see it as a good omen. Draco was coming out from that place with in himself that I could not reach. Even though I knew it to be wrong, I could not help but think I had found an answer. Here was someone for Draco to pour his heart into, and he himself was a tiny father for my little girl. The days we spent together seemed idyllic and we seemed beyond the legacy of horror that had tormented my life thus far. If only I could have removed my husband from the equation. If only I had the strength to do so.
It was a hard time at the Ministry in those days. My husband walked a precarious line, trying to run his department as an alleged Death Eater. He had to strike the difficult balance of suffocating rumors without betraying his Dark Lord. While he would never have admitted it, the stress was terrible for him. He realized he could no longer command respect by his reputation. Instead he had to do so by force and intimidation. More and more his hostilities and frustrations spilled into my life and our home. He had been passing his evenings with co-orkers at the Minataur, a bar on Knockturn Alley. He came home so many nights heavy with the stink of fire-whiskey and an opressive air of fury, the way he came home that fateful night.
-----------------
Thank you! Please review!