Before you cross the street, take my hand
Life is just what happens to you
While you're busy making other plans
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy

- Celine Dion, Beautiful Boy

EIGHT YEARS LATER:

The Malfoys celebrated Christmas the same way the family had for centuries, the proper way without any silly stories about flying reindeer (how ridiculous was that? Anyone knew that Pegasus Deer were the only ones that flew!) and fat men in red coming down the chimney. Their handsome old stone manor was hung with branches of cedar and holly, candles burned everwhere, and the giant tree they erected in the great hall was decorated with festoons of real fruit – apples, pears, grapes, plums, and pomegranates charmed to stay fresh and covered with glittering dew.

In keeping with their five-hundred-year-old traditions, Christmas dinner was pork, not turkey, and the family waited until New Year's Day to exchange gifts. Lucius was always adamantly against doing anything 'the Muggle way', as lesser families like the Weasleys tended to, but the past few years he'd taken to bringing home an early present or two for Draco.

This year, Draco's eighth, was no exception. Early on Christmas morning, the energetic little boy ran downstairs to find a long, thin package, wrapped in brown paper and string (Malfoys would never lower themselves to anything so tacky as the absurdly patterned paper and ribbons the Muggles used) waiting at his place on the table.

"Oh, boy!" he exclaimed, running to grab it. But before he could get there, Narcissa caught his arm.

"Sweetheart," she said, "don't' you think you should wait until Daddy gets up?"

"Aw, Mum," Draco protested.

"Draco," said Narcissa, a warning in her voice.

He pouted, but relented. "Fine," he said sullenly. "I'll wait." He went to sit and sulk at the bottom of the staircase, waiting for his father.

Narcissa eyed the parcel with trepidation. She had an excellent idea of what was likely to be in it, and she wished Lucius had warned her – it would have given her the opportunity to try to talk him out of it. She'd done her best to discourage Lucius from trying to get his son to show magical talent, using as her excuse a view that children should not be pressed – their abilities should be allowed to emerge naturally. She'd hoped to put off the problems that would naturally follow when Lucius learned that the boy he thought was his own was not a wizard... but now, there was that package, staring her in the face. What was she going to do?

She looked at Draco, sitting on the bottom step with his knees drawn up to his chin. He was rocking impatiently back and forth. Being the one who'd cast the glamour charm on him, Narcissa could see through it if she tried... and when she did, she saw a round-faced, flush-cheeked little boy, with curly hair and bright brown eyes. And amazingly, it didn't bother her. No matter how he'd gotten that way, Draco was her son, and she couldn't imagine a child she could love more, even one that was her own flesh and blood.

In fact, that child that was her flesh and blood had no effect on her at all. A few months earlier, Narcissa had gone into Avebury for a latte – Lucius heartily disapproved of his wife's coffee habit, but it was an addiction she couldn't quite shake – and while in the shop she'd noticed a couple with a little girl who looked much like a female version of the child she saw when she looked through the charm on Draco. When Narcissa concentrated, she and only she had been able to watch as the girl's face thinned and paled, her doll-like curls smoothed and turned wheat-blonde, and her brown eyes lightened to Malfoy gray. Then she'd blinked, and everything was back to normal.

So this was Narcissa's daughter. She and Lucius had agreed that their child would be named for its grandparents on both sides... hence their boy was Draco Aldebaran, and a girl would have been Aurelia Capella. So that was Aurelia Capella Malfoy... Narcissa stood and watched the girl until she and her parents were out of sight, but she felt nothing. Whatever her family called her, that girl was theirs... and Draco was Narcissa's. As long as both children were loved, it didn't matter for now.

But it would matter when Lucius found out that Draco had no magic, and all of a sudden that event, always safely far-off before, was imminent. When she heard Lucius' heavy footsteps on the stairs, Narcissa got up and hurried to meet him.

Draco, of course, was there first. "Dad!" he exclaimed. "Can I open my present now?"

"Of course you c..." Lucius began, but Narcissa stepped in front of him.

"Dear," she said, "don't you think he's a little young for a broom just yet? He's only eight years old."

"Of course not," said Lucius. "I had my first broom at eight."

"Yes," said Narcissa, "but Draco is not you."

"Oh, come off it, Narcissa," Lucius snorted. "You're going to stifle the poor boy. Open your present, Draco."

But Draco was already doing so. He tore the paper away and his pale little face lit like a lamp as he pulled out the broom. "A Junior Meteor!" he beamed. "Thomas Parkinson has last year's model!" He swung a leg over the little broom.

"Slow down!" Lucius exclaimed, laughing. "Not indoors – you'll make a mess. Let's go out back."

Narcissa followed them, her heart loud in her ears. Whatever happened, and however Lucius reacted to it, she had to be there for damage control. She had no idea what she would say r do, but she'd have to think of something.

"Like this," said Lucius, demonstrating how to call a broom to his hand. "Up!"

"Up!" Draco commanded.

Narcissa shut her eyes, unable to watch.

"It worked!" she heard Draco say.

"Of course it did," said Lucius. "You see, Narcissa? He's fine."

She opened her eyes again – and breathed out. Draco was smiling like a little sun, his new broom in his hand.

"See, Mum?" he said. "I am too big enough!"

"Yes, you are," she agreed, happy tears in her eyes as she silently thanked any listening deity. The idea that the Muggle woman's child might be itself magically talented wasn't one she'd ever considered. It was an absurd coincidence... but a wonderful one, and Narcissa ran out into the snow in her bare feet to give her son a hug.

THREE YEARS LATER:

The owls arrived at breakfast time, two of them. One was a big, white-faced bird with the Hogwarts crest on its collar – it perched on Lucius' shoulder and let him take the letter it was carrying, which was sealed with familiar green wax. The other owl, midnight black with big gold eyes, landed by Narcissa. The envelope in its claws bore a gold wax seal, with a familiar two-headed eagle shield.

Lucius ignored the Hogwarts owl and reached for the one near Narcissa. "Ah," he said. "That'll be the one from Durmstrang."

"You applied for Draco to go to Durmstrang?" asked Narcissa. She and Lucius were sitting in the breakfast nook, with windows wide open to let in the sunshine and the already warm summer air, but suddenly she felt very cold.

"Of course," said Lucius. "Igor Karkaroff is a personal friend, and I want my son to get a proper education."

"I'm sure you do," said Narcissa. But Durmstrang didn't accept Muggleborns, and over the last few years, the optimism inspired by the broom incident had ebbed. Someday, somehow, somebody was going to find out what Draco was... most likely, she'd concluded, when he had children of his own, who would inherit his genes but not the glamour charm that hid them. But anything could happen before then, especially at school. A stray revealing charm was all it would take. Someday, it would have to be dealt with... and she'd rather not force Draco to deal with it at a school full of pureblood purists taught the Dark Arts. "It's a long way from home, Lucius."

Lucius waved a hand, dismissive. "What did I tell you about stifling him, Narcissa?"

"It's not stifling him to send him to a school close to him," she replied, "not to mention one with a better reputation. Hogwarts gets students from all over the world."

"Hogwarts' curriculum is incomplete," said Lucius.

"It was good enough for your parents," Narcissa pointed out. "And good enough for mine. All Draco's friends will be going there... the Parkinsons sent Thomas and they'll surely send Pansy and William. The Zabinis are most definitely sending Blaise, I spoke to Laura Zabini about it last week, and I remember you telling me that the Crabbes and the Goyles are both sending their sons to Hogwarts. And besides," she lowered her voice. "You've heard the rumors."

Everybody had heard the rumors – or at least, everybody who'd been part of the Dark Lord's circle. Nobody was too sure where they'd started, and nobody had a really concrete story to tell. It was less news than it was a feeling in the wind, a sensation that something was not quite right, something had darkened. To Narcissa, it had manifested itself as an urge to spend extra time with her son, while she still could, and Helene Parkinson and Elizabeth Goyle both claimed to have noticed the same thing.

"Of course I have," Lucius agreed, also dropping his voice to a whisper. "Why do you think I want him to be prepared?"

"And why do you think I want him close to home?" Narcissa countered. "If anything happens, I want Draco where we can bring him home quickly. He's only a boy, remember – no, he doesn't need stifling, and I'm not trying to stifle him, but he does need protection. He's eleven years old, he needs protection from them and protection from us. Not to mention it's hardly a secret that Durmstrang teaches the Dark Arts. We barely convinced the ministry we were innocent the first time. I'm still convinced they only let us go because I was pregnant. If we pass up Hogwarts to send Draco to Durmstrang..." she trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished not as a threat but because she knew this wasn't doing a bit of good. Lucius never changed his mind. If he said Draco was going to Durmstrang, then that was that.

But to Narcissa's surprise, he nodded. "You're right," he said. "And I suppose at his age he's really better off being with peers he knows, rather than strangers."

Tears of relief welled up in Narcissa's eyes, and she quickly blinked them away. "Thank you," she said, not knowing what else to say. It was so rare for Lucius to actually listen to her.

"I suppose I'll just have to do what my father did," Lucius added. "Bribe the ministry and teach him during the summers."

Aldebaran and Capella Black had done that for their three daughters, too. "Yes," she said. "Nobody will pay much attention to that. Everybody does it." Kids had to learn their hexes and jinxes somehow... if they didn't, they'd be helpless against the kids who did.

"That they do," Lucius nodded. "Though I suppose it'll mean dealing with Dumbledore – Merlin, I can't stand that man. He thinks he can run everything and manage everybody's lives for them, and he gets away with it, too. If he had any ambition..." he shook his head. "He's got to be nearly two hundred by now. I wish he'd hurry up and die, and let somebody with some sense take over."

"You can handle Dumbledore," Narcissa soothed. "He knows better than that. Besides," she ventured, "you probably know more about the Dark Arts than anybody at Durmstrang, anyway."

"Indeed." Lucius smiled – it seemed he did that less and less often as the years went by. "Indeed I do – Karkaroff might have been a Death Eater, but he didn't get any lessons in curses from the Dark Lord himself."