part two. Thank you for your lovely comments! I'm so glad you like this.
True Magic
Ch 2: Middles
I tried to help him. I swear it. I couldn't do anything... I was only a child.
Trips to the Malfoy Mansion became frequent. The Malfoy Mansion is large, many other Malfoy's had lived there prior to the current residents. The Malfoy Mansion is located in Wiltshire, in south-west England. Wiltshire is a county in south-central Britain west of London. It is the starting point of the West Country. My family also lived in the West Country, but in a different county from the Malfoy's.
My mother and his, Narcissa, enjoyed each other's company while the two of us played at whatever game it was that day. Sometimes it was house, or pirates, or Kings and queens. A favorite of ours was to pretend to be muggles, folk who were not magic users. It baffled the two of us how muggles coped without magic.
By the time I was nine I would Floo over from my home in Cornwall to the Mansion in Wiltshire on my own. The Malfoy Mansion was no larger than my family's, but I found it to be ten times more exciting. In the Mansion there were new rooms to discover every day.
The only room out of bounds for Draco and I was his father's office. The only way to get in was to be invited in. Once, I was allowed in. Lucius, Draco's father who he got his eyes from, showed the two of us a trinket.
"Sophia, Draco, would you like to see something?" Lucius asked one day when he entered the house. The two of us looked at each other then back at him. We nodded our heads and he made a motion with his hand to follow. As elegant as Narcissa was, Lucius was grand. The both of them extraordinary always had me in awe. Maybe it was that I was small, everything looks larger when one is young, but I still get the same feeling when around the two.
Lucuis swept through the house with the two of us following. He lead us to his office where he invited us in. Draco and I again looked at each other before stepping in. In one smooth motion Lucius unclasped his cloak and in an instant it was on a rack. He placed his package on the desk and moved to sit behind his desk.
The room was dark, a large oak desk, oak shelves, oak chairs. Leather and oak is what the room was made of. The odd scent of peppermint lingered in the air. Looking around the room I saw cabinets, shelves, everywhere there were strange things. Every surface of Lucuis' office was covered with a book, paper or strange artifact. He'd been doing a lot of reading and – experiments. Strange jars filled with strange things. Odd books with odd titles. Papers, stacks and stacks of papers. I'm sure if I were to go back today I would find the same thing.
"Sophia," I jumped when Lucius said my name, "Draco come closer." I and Draco edged our way to the desk. Looking at the package I wondered what was in it. Was it something new to add to the strange knick knacks in his office? Maybe it was something that had been floating in one of his jars. No, the package was too small. "What is it?" I spoke up. Lucius saw my eyes wander round the room. He laughed, "don't be silly, it's nothing like that." My face went red with embarrassment. "Do you think Mrs. Malfoy will like it?" Lucuis asked opening up the box.
A string of black and silver sparkled. You could look into the large black stones and get lost in them, yet they sparkled and had the same clarity as a diamond at the same time. "Black diamonds," Lucuis announced. "Black diamonds?" I asked. I furrowed my brow and looked Lucius straight on, "there's no such thing." "Sophie," Draco said, using my child hood name, "they're sitting right in front of you." "Well I've never heard of them before," I told Draco. "Well my father has some," he says, proud, no not proud envious of his father. Draco had always looked up to Lucius. "Black diamonds are made by Dragons," Lucius explained. "Dragons?" I asked. "Yes dear, Dragons," he answered. "How?" I demanded to know. "Well you see, after a dragon has breathed fire on a diamond it will turn black as the night sky, or your raven hair," he smiled. "Really?" I asked. "Really," he answered. "Would you like a peppermint?" Lucius asked two candies appearing in his hand.
This was the one and only time I had been in Lucius Malfoy's office. And every time I saw the necklace around Narcissa Malfoy's neck I remembered this. The wonder of the room came back each and every time, just as if it had been yesterday. I could see each and every knick knack, paper and book in my minds eye. I imagined what each contained and I knew each book and paper by heart. Each detail of every knick knack. I can still smell and taste the peppermint.
I often came home with tales Lucius had told me. Things like the Black Diamonds and many other strange tales. He often told Draco and I odd stories about old artifacts and even more often he told us about how life was when he was our age. All adults seem to like to do that. Especially when scolding you. "When I was your age," my Aunt Margaret would say before telling me about how I couldn't sew properly or that I hadn't curtsied or other rubbish like that. Who cared if I couldn't cross stitch? Who cared if I couldn't balance a book on my head? My Aunt Margaret did.
Aunt Margaret was an old woman. Much older than my father, her brother. She had never wed and I suppose this had made her the way she was. She had a long face with glasses at the end of her pointy nose. They teetered there, strangely balanced. Many times I thought they would fall off, but they never did. My Aunt Margaret's favorite colour was purple. All shades of purple pleased her. Plum personified her, lilac was lovely and magenta moved her. "How unladylike," she would say with her naturally upturned nose.
Draco Malfoy met her standards. He was a fine young wizard and she reckoned he would become a powerful one in the future. "Like his father," she would say. Oh how my Aunt Margaret loved Lucuis Malfoy. "If I were young again," she would say envious of Narcissa.
However much she approved of Draco there was one thing she did not like. That I played with him as if I were a boy. "It is unbecoming of you," Aunt Margaret would scold, "it is unbecoming of a Le Fey." Le Fey this, Le Fey that. Aunt Margaret would launch into our family history. It all ends with her telling of the great Morgan le Fey, my great, great, great, more greats than I can count, Grandmother Morgana. She was a bird Animagus and was King Arthur's half sister. She was a dark sorceress and Merlin's enemy. She was queen of the island of Avalon, and she it's said she had great skill as a healer.
It's funny I can see her picture on a Chocolate Frog trading card. Well, I find it hilarious. I remember Aunt Margaret once saying, "I don't know whether to be insulted or not! A trading card! This is... is..." "Unbecoming?" I had asked. Which resulted in her launching into our family history. Why I couldn't keep my mouth shut was beyond me.
It was my Aunt Margaret's mission to have me become a proper lady. "Proper young ladys do not run around in the garden with Cornish Pixies like that!" she would call out standing on the balcony. "It's simply..." "Unladylike?" I would finish. "Yes! Quite unladylike," she would say. And again she would refresh not only me of our family history but Draco and the Cornish Pixies.
I thought that my Aunt Margaret was the worst it could get, that is until the day Lucius caught Draco and I in a game of muggles. I still remember the look on his face, he was horrified. "What, are you two doing?" he roared. "We were just playing," I tried to say before he cut me off. He used many of the same words Aunt Margaret used. "Unbecoming!" he went on, "disgraceful!" "Pure-blood," he said. Never had I seen anyone so angry, not even my Aunt Margaret. Narcissa rushed into the room, she was like our angel. "Lucuis they're children," she said. She sent me home and to this day I wonder why she married him.
This time my tale of what Lucius had said was quickly put away and never spoken of again. Aunt Margaret's mission to make me more ladylike came into effect not long after. This left less and less time for Draco. I did see him, but he was undergoing a change much like my own. Both our families had said it was time for us to grow up.
I didn't understand then. I was young. What Lucuis had said did not make any difference to me.
This of course was all a long time ago.
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