Don't Become a Stranger, Please
When she opened the door, a cool wind blew in and reminded her of fall, sweeping through the foyer before dying out just at the bottom of the grand staircase. She managed a smile perfectly, one that would dazzle strangers, but her Uncle Harry was no stranger, and immediately his emerald green eyes cast her a concerned look.
"Please, don't look at me like that Uncle Harry." She whispered, and looked down, greeting her cousin Annabelle with a great big hug, "Hullo there Annie." She snuggled the ten year olds red hair and closed her eyes.
Annabelle's father Ron followed her and Harry in, took one look at his niece, and swept her into a hug. She was quite sure she'd stopped breathing the way he clutched her, rubbing her back soothingly, "Where's your brother?"
Stepping back from the bear hug that she loved on any other circumstance, she sighed and shook her head, "He hasn't left Da's bedside yet. He told the medi's to leave him alone; oh Uncle Ron, he's charmed the doors locked!" It was the first time she'd felt tears prick at her eyes, and she turned her head down in shame.
"Antigone…look at me…" Harry's voice echoed in her ears and after a moment, drawing in a sharp breath, she lifted her head to meet his eyes with her own, watery silver eyes.
Letting out a small 'tut', Harry lifted her chin with a finger, the other hand twirling a strand of her blonde hair around his finger, "Staying this way, it's only going to make things worse. Do you want Andrade to see you this way when he's already grieving the way he is? And what about looking in a mirror, have you thought of that? The heartache will only come back then."
She sniffled, and shook her head, and suddenly she had her arms wrapped around her uncle, crying loudly, "I just wanted to see him, when I looked at myself. I just…why couldn't I have looked like him? It's not fair…it's not fair…" Her hand gripped his shirt, fisted in the cloth as her tears soaked it.
Harry wrapped his arms around her, his eyes meeting Ron's, conveying a look of misery and worry. Ron watched his best friend with sorrow glittering his own eyes, and took his daughter by the hand, leading her out of the foyer, towards the den that was just around the corner; leaving Harry and Antigone alone.
Antigone wasn't sure how long she stood there, wrapped around her uncle, sobbing for her lost da, for her aching twin, for all of it. She wasn't sure when her hair turned to crimson, or when her clear, pale skin made way for freckles. Pulling back in Harry's arms, she looked up at him, wiping her eyes, stepping back, trying to smooth her shirt out. Harry stepped back, hands going to his pockets, a small chuckle leaving his mouth, offering her the best smile he could muster, "There are those brown eyes I love."
Antigone looked up at, trying her best to smile for him, failing, but he could see it in those chocolate orbs. He opened his mouth to speak, and she wondered what he would say, but then her mother was coming down the stairs and his attention left her to look at her older version. She didn't hear what he said to Ginevra Malfoy, she was too busy staring at the woman herself. Ginny wasn't exactly an older version of her, they had very different facial structures. In fact, Antigone and Andrade both looked like replicas of their da, the late Draco Malfoy; only Antigone had been graced with red hair and brown eyes. She had taken on, however, the power to be a metamorphmagus that ran in the blood of Draco's Black heritage. Her heart tightens as she thinks of her da, a da that has just died.
It's her mother's cool responses to her uncle that blind her, that voice that rings and she's back to reality. She watches her mother with hazed eyes; Ginevra Malfoy and perfect calm. Antigone found herself seething. Her mother was born a Weasley, she never did anything the way a Malfoy would and that was why her da had loved her so. He'd always joke with Antigone and Andrade that their mother was a breath of fresh air. So why was she doing this now? Why was she becoming so emotionally detached? Why wasn't her mother weeping for the loss of her true love?
Before she could stop herself, Antigone found herself approaching the spot where Harry met her mother at the bottom of the stairs, shoving herself between them, "What is wrong with you mum?"
Ginny looked taken a back, and narrowed her shining brown eyes, "What's wrong with greeting our guest, Antigone Malfoy?"
Antigone found herself gasping for air. Where had her mother gone? Ginny Malfoy would never say that, ever, she'd die and say over her dead body before that.
"Antigone?" Harry's hand was on her shoulder.
"What is wrong with young? Do you know what's going on here? Why are you acting like nothing's happened?" Antigone was screaming, she could hear it echoing off the walls, "Stop being so calm! Stop being so collected! He's dead! Your husband is dead and he's not coming back. Do you realize that mum? Stop acting like you don't care! Why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you doing this to me? MY DA IS DEAD AND HE ISN'T COMING BACK!"
Antigone felt her knees go out from under her, and she waited for the cold marble to come up and greet her as her sobs brought her down. But then she felt arms wrapping around her form, and she was clutching them, the scent she knew that was her brother's. As he lifted her into his arms and carried her up the stairs, she could see her mother crying in the arms of her uncle.
Everything was hazy. Where was she? She couldn't open her eyes, not yet, her head hurt. Tentatively she reached out, fingers brushing against the material beneath her. Silk. She was in her brother's room, his scent of peppermint and something no one could ever put a finger on hitting her nose. She could hear the fire crackling, and she felt the bed shift as someone sat down beside her. Opening her eyes, she met his grey eyes with her true ones.
"Evy." Andrade Malfoy's voice was soft as he called her by the nickname only he and his da were allowed to call her. She winced, looking at him, and he knew instantly that he'd hit a sensitive nerve in his twin's shambled body.
"Is mum okay?" Her voice was weak.
"I don't care at this moment, Evy, I only care about you." She could see her da's determinance shining through in his eyes, and she whimpered. Andrade had never been one to leave his mother behind, he cared for her almost as fiercely as their da had, but when it came down to her and Antigone, he was beside his twin at the drop of a dime.
"She was being so…cold, Andrade. I couldn't bear it." She moved towards him and he wrapped an arm around her, "I didn't mean to scream. I just couldn't watch her be so normal when Da's upstairs…" She couldn't finish her sentence, a fresh batch of tears building in her eyes.
"Uncle Ron was trying to coax me out of the room when it started. I wasn't going to leave Da's side…but then I felt your pain, Antigone. You scared me." His voice was traced with fear, a tint of numbness beneath it all.
Antigone looked up at her brother, and clutched him closer, murmuring her apologies into his black shirt, letting her tears pour forward. Nothing ever scared Andrade up until his past twentieth birthday. It was just a week after Draco had told them that he was sick; and a week after his birthday Antigone had been in a quidditch accident. To her, she could see his worry, his concern that maybe his happy life was falling a part around him. She shivered with guilt that she was twice the reasoning for his break in calm stature.
"No, no, it's alright Antigone, don't apologize to me. Look at the situation we're in…it's… expected." Andrade was running his fingers through her hair, "What mum did…wasn't. It's why you broke."
Antigone felt more tears building in her chest and she let out another cry and tightened her hold on him. And he was the perfect brother, holding her while she sobbed herself silent and expressed her grief, and he held all of his inside his chest. Suddenly she was wishing that she could be strong like him, but she knew that when he was alone, he'd shed his own tears. She always knew when he cried, she'd feel it in her chest, but she never went to him, he preferred it that way.
When she was done crying, he cast a spell on her face to clear it up and offered her a small smile, "I think Aunt Hermione and the others have arrived, shall we go down?"
Nodding, she found herself wishing for time to pass so that she could see her brother laugh again.
Downstairs, the Weasley's were gathered in the large den, everyone sitting around and being quiet. Ginny was wrapped in a blanket and cuddled close to Charlie, the way Antigone had expected her to be the first time, instead of portraying Narcissa Malfoy on a bad day. Antigone found herself wondering why everyone was so quiet, but when Andrade led her into the room, she knew that they had been waiting for the Malfoy twins.
Instantly her grandmum was up and fussing over Andrade and pulling him away from her, to go get a cup of hot tea no doubt and warm him by the fire. He cast her a look as if it were an apology, but she gave him a nod to let him know she would be alright just as her Uncle Fred came to her. Fred tried to offer her a smile, but he failed and instead just hugged her and led her to sit with him on the leather loveseat her da had loved to share with her. Ginny knew this too, and she looked at her daughter with watery eyes, worry springing into them, but Antigone offered her a smile. All was forgiven and forgotten and she was alright now. Ginny smiled and leaned back against Charlie.
Looking around the room, Antigone studied everyone in her family. Her Aunt Hermione was holding Annabelle's younger brother, Shepard, in her lap and Uncle Ron was holding her hand. Annabelle had taken residence on George's lap and Aunt Luna was currently braiding her hair in silence. She didn't see Bill in the room, but she was sure he hadn't arrived from France just yet, and Aunt Angelina was probably still at the game, after all, she was Captain of the Harpies. She curled herself closer into Uncle Fred and let him pet her hair; she'd always been closer to him of all her uncle's. It was odd to see him and George so quiet, but then again, they had taken quite a liking to her da of all her uncle's.
Just as she was wondering why everyone was being so quiet, and if they were going to stay like that all night, her grandmum opened her mouth. Immediately, Antigone wished she hadn't.
"I think Saturday will be a good day for the services." Molly's voice cut through the room like ice, "I can put a call in to Mister Natius for the urn, and I'm sure we can find some lovely flowers-"
"Mother!" George's voice hissed out like a snake, and Antigone found herself pining for her da again, "Shut up."
Everyone was suddenly very still. Such words could be expected from Charlie, even Bill, but George never took control this way, and as he passed Annabelle to Luna, he stared his mother down, "He's just passed and you're already talking about putting him into the ground and forgetting him."
Antigone could see her brother stiffen, and turn his head back to the fire. Her heart ached again not for herself, but for him. No matter how close she had been to her da, Andrade had been closer. He was the very image and manner of Draco Malfoy and now he had lost his only mentor. She watched his face twist, and she wanted to reach out for him.
As if Merlin himself had dropped him out of the sky, Severus Snape entered the room and went immediately to Andrade's side, swooping in and perching himself like a hawk. Everyone went still again. Everyone went back to grieving Draco Malfoy's death.
Later that evening, when dinner was done though no one had eaten a thing and the guest rooms were given out everyone insisted on staying the night , Antigone found herself in the company of her fiancé, Damien Zabini, and wished she wasn't. She adored her fiancé, she truly did, but she didn't love him; Draco had known this. While he had been excited that the Zabini and Malfoy lines would finally come together, the concern he held for his only daughter stood way beyond that. Things like that had been the separating lines between Draco and his father, the very late Lucius Malfoy. Before he'd died, he'd told Antigone to do what she truly wanted, and not to worry about the family image. She'd always been so much like him, that that made sense to her; after all, he had married a Weasley.
"My father is going to come see your mother tomorrow." Damien said from his spot in a chair by the fire.
She was seated in the large bay window in her room, looking down over the Malfoy gardens, her finger tracing the window, listening to him speak, "She'll like that."
She always wondered what had happened in Damien's life to make him so unlike his father, Blaise. Blaise was… had been Draco's best friend, and they were so alike. Damien seemed as if he were of the old blood, like his grandmother or her grandfather Lucius. Antigone found herself wondering about her choice in marriage again.
"I really wish you wouldn't do this to yourself." Damien's voice cut into her thoughts again, and she turned to look at him with a puzzled face, "Your father wouldn't want you to be this way, to look like this."
She turned away from him instantly, her lips curling into a sneer that would have made her da proud. What did he know of the way she felt? Her da was dead and he was concerned about how she looked, his nose stuck in the air, "I don't care how I look. I just want to mourn my da."
"Father." Damien corrected her.
Antigone found herself seething. How dare him. Draco was her Da, before he was her father, she wouldn't allow herself to begin referring to him as if he were suddenly a stranger.
"Da." She forced the word through clenched teeth, her temper rising, "He is my da and I won't let you turn him into a stranger!" Her voice had risen with each word, and she was staring Damien down with fiery brown eyes.
He seemed taken aback, and then he stood, crossing to her, taking her by the shoulders, tutting softly and pulling her into his chest, "Ssshhh."
Even if she wanted to hate him, she couldn't bring herself to. Even Damien Zabini had a soft side, and besides that, he knew when to shut up around the Malfoy twins. This was one of those times. Sometime later, she found herself lying on the bed, over the covers, Damien holding her close, but it didn't bring her comfort. He was caressing her hair, and whispering softly about how life would be after they were married.
"I love you hair, Antigone, this beautiful crimson hair you have. I wish you wouldn't change it so much." She didn't change it often, only in times of stress; she wasn't at all like her cousin Nymphadora. Her hair was a dull red right now, almost a replica of how her mother's looked, and people assumed it was so natural; after all, she'd just lost her da. "And your beautiful brown eyes, so doe like." She closed her eyes, they were dull too, and she whimpered.
After a few minutes, she pulled away, "I think you should go home now Damien." She stopped his interrupting with a shake of her head, "I don't want you to stay, I'm sorry. I just want to be alone." She eyed him before he opened his mouth, "If I need anything, I'll find my brother or Uncle Severus. Good night Damien."
Later that night, after a fitful hour of sleep, Antigone found herself in front of the vanity that stood in the corner of her large room. She didn't bother with lights, the moon offered perfect clarity in her deep purple room. She sat staring at the mirror for a long time. She could see her knuckles turning white, lying atop the vanity, clenched. She stared at herself and studied her face for a long, long time. She wept, for a long, long time. She wept, because no one knew who she truly was. No one had ever seen the real Antigone Evane Malfoy aside from her father and brother. Not even her mum. When she was younger, her natural defense was to take after her mother, even before she truly knew she was doing it. Her true form hadn't been revealed to her until she was almost ten. Another rarity among rarities.
Looking up, Antigone faced her demons. A demon with a feminine version of her da's face, startling violet eyes, and black hair. Antigone wept. She wept to be so alone, she wept for those that would never know her, and she wept for a crushed soul.
"Daddy…" Her fists clenched, "Why…daddy…why…"
She watched her violet eyes bleed tears. In the morning, she was going to keep her appearance up, resorting to red hair and brown eyes. In the morning, she was going to help Uncle Severus sort through her da's potions. In the morning, she was going to have tea with her mum and cry. In the morning, she was going to declare she wasn't marrying Damien Zabini. In the morning, she was going to keep hiding this face that was so much like her Aunt Bellatrix's. In the morning, she was going to write her da's name on expensive paper, in silver ink, and she was going to burn it and promise to remember him forever. In the morning, Antigone was going to remain hidden.
A mirror shattered.
