Animosa nullos mater admittit metus.
SENECA – Troades*
The pregnancy had been
unproblematic; Madam Rosenberg had been satisfied with her patient, and this
one was thoroughly satisfied, too. Glowingly happy, more like. Only the father
wasn’t well; in fact, Lucius was so nervous with the forthcoming birth of his
son, he had stopped going to his office in April already to be with his wife
all the time. He had read books about pregnancy, about birth classes, he had
set up many rolls of parchment with possible names. He had even tried to drag
Narcissa to one of those birth classes and accompanied her, but they had agreed
that they wouldn’t go a second time, with Narcissa commenting dryly, “I know
I’m no professional breather, but I get by for a living.”
The birth itself was almost
as stressful for him, as for the becoming mother. Madam Rosenberg had thrown
him out of the hallway before the bedroom, stating that he drove her mad by his
pacing up and down, so he had to wait downstairs with his own father, who urged
him to drink one whiskey after the other. He had never felt so helpless.
Upstairs, the light of his life was in labour – in pains; he had read
everything about it, and about everything that could go wrong – and what about
his son? The poor little lad, what if the umbilical cord strangled him, if he
hadn’t turned around like he ought to, maybe he’d need a forceps delivery… He
shuddered with the mere term!
“They don’t call it the pangs for nothing!”
“Sit down, or I’ll
throw you out too, and you’ve got to wait in the dungeons,” Abraxas growled,
pushing his son back into his armchair.
“It’s taking awfully long,
isn’t it? What if –”
“Your mother’s been in
labour for thirty hours –”
“What?!”
“Thirty hours. You were lazy
and tardy even when coming out of the womb, sonny –”
“Stop calling me sonny,
Father! I’m going to be a father myself any minute now!”
“Any minute, my arse,” the
old man taunted and shook his head. “You fool! She’s up there for no more than
six hours. It’ll take a while still. Just as well we could play a game of
snooker in the interim.”
Lucius goggled at him
stupidly, before realising that Abraxas had tried to make a joke. “You’re no
good with the cue, Father. You’re far too arthritic.”
“Yeah, but you’re shaking so
badly, you couldn’t even hold the cue. Now calm down. Madam Rosenberg is
in the business for – what – a century or so –”
“When you think you can
relax me by telling me that our midwife is so old that she’s blind, deaf and
arthritic, too, you’re on the wrong track!”
“I give you credit for your
concerns, boy. I just hope your care extends to more than the mere birth.”
“You ought not to be
talking!”
“I never put myself
into deliberate danger either, sonny! We’ll see of how much use you’ll be to your
son when you’ve landed your bum in a prison cell, or the family crypt!”
“Stop being so melodramatic!
My nerves are strained enough as it is, tonight!”
Lucius was drunk as hell
when one of the elves finally arrived, panting, not even bothering to knock –
but this wasn’t the time for quarrelling about manners. “Sir,” he wheezed,
“it’s – My Lady –”
He jumped up and sprinted
upstairs, badly hitting his elbow on the bedroom door frame, but not even
registering this now. All he perceived was this – his wife, as pale as the
linen she was lying on, smiled at him and in her arm, she held a tiny bundle.
He fell to his knees beside her, covering her free hand with kisses, before
daring to take a look at the child. He was so small, his face almost purple,
his eyes squeezed shut… Little wonder, after nine months in the dark, the dimly
lit room must be as bright as hellfire for him.
“Isn’t he beautiful?”
Narcissa breathed, ruffling her husband’s hair.
“He is! Takes after his
mother –”
She patted at the mattress,
urging him to lie down next to her. He did, swirling one arm around her,
lightly stroking over his son’s head with the other. Narcissa snuggled up to
him. “Say hello to your daddy, Draco…”
The child moved his tiny
fists. This was more of a reflex, but Lucius was inclined to take it as waving,
and muttered, “Hello Draco…”
Their bliss was complete.
Lucius purchased a whole page in the Daily Prophet and a couple of other
newspapers to announce the birth of little Draco Apollonius Alboin David
Artemis Immanuel Cygnus Abraxas Phaeton Malfoy – dilectis pueris varia nomina
damus* –, 20 inches, 7 pounds. Even Abraxas was for once content. His son couldn’t be
that useless if he had fathered such a marvellous baby, though he gave the
mother most of the credit.
Little Draco was an angel.
Both his parents couldn’t grow tired of watching him, even watching over his
sleep for hours, entirely enraptured. The little curls of blond silk, the tiny
fists fidgeting, the eeny weeny button nose, his ears not bigger than one of
Narcissa’s fingernails. Lucius had never held anything so fragile – his son.
His son – the child of the woman he loved more than his life, and
himself… In this tiny bundle, everything was embodied that Lucius treasured in
life, and he solemnly pledged that he’d always put Draco first, that this boy
should miss nothing, that he’d lay down his life at once if his son
needed it…
Narcissa couldn’t have been
prouder; like her husband, she wouldn’t have believed that she could ever have
partaken in bringing something so wonderful about, if the living proof hadn’t
smiled at her whenever she looked. For the first – and ultimately last – time
in her life, she even endured visitors, some more welcome, but most not. Still,
she wanted them all to see her son, see the utter miracle that he was. Not
everyone had a share of her knack to deal with babies though.
Severus, for example,
couldn’t handle the child, smiling insecurely and handing it back to the mother
at once. “Quite the father, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes! Lucius won’t hear
of it, but it’s true. Don’t plan anything for next Sunday; we’ll finally have
the naming ceremony.” He smiled and nodded, and she tentatively changed the
subject. “I’d like to ask you something, Severus…”
“Yes?”
“Do you – do you know
anything about –”
“What?”
“That thing with the
Potters…”
She pretended to look the
other way, but closely kept her eye on him. His face blanched, but he shook his
head. “Nothing, Narcissa. Not more than you, anyway.”
“You know you can be open
with me, yes?”
“Yes, I know.” He gave a
little smile.
“I won’t tell Lucius, and
the Dark Lord doesn’t bother to interview me personally. I can keep a secret,
Savvy.”
“I know you can. But there
is really nothing to say, is there?”
His manner signalled
finality, but Narcissa wasn’t one to give up easily. “You can’t tell me you’re
not bothered because of Lily.”
His muscles got tense with
that name and he averted his face. “Don’t talk about that, Narcissa. Strictly
seen, you mustn’t even know about it!”
“I guess Lucius finds it
important enough to tell me when one of the few people I’ve ever regarded as a
friend has been marked for death.”
He hesitated. “When you say
Lily had been your friend, what’s that saying about the state of our
friendship?”
“Oh, don’t do that. You know
what I mean. You are my friend, and Lily was someone I just liked,
all right. But you know that’s a lot for me – really liking somebody… I
remember that you liked her, too.”
He gave a start and shot her
a very sharp look. “If I ever was your friend, Narcissa, you must not repeat
that. Please!”
“Repeat it among the two of
us, or repeat it to someone else?”
“Both!”
“Come on, Savvy. I won’t
give you away, but between you and me – I knew you had a crush on her before
you knew it yourself.”
She had been deliberately
blunt, closely watching his reaction. For a split second, he looked furious,
but recomposed at rapid speed. “That’s all in the past.”
“Yes, sure… But does it sit
well with you that she’s going to die?”
He sneered. “Now what do you
think?”
“I think it drives you mad,”
she replied slyly. She had sensed that Lily Evans was the way to go with him,
and she wasn’t going to abandon her prey.
“No, not mad. Mad’s
certainly not the word.”
“So what is the word?”
He gave no reply, but got up
and poured two glasses of wine, offering one to Narcissa. She declined because
of the baby, so he conjured her a glass of lemonade, they toasted, and he said
flatly, “She’s safe. It appears that the Dark Lord won’t kill her eventually.”
Even if this piece of news
went against everything she had in mind in this moment, Narcissa couldn’t but
sigh and smile in relief. “Oh, thank goodness! The man’s more reasonable than I
had given him credit for. A prophecy! Oh please!”
“No, Cissa, you got that
wrong. He does believe in the prophecy, and he wants to counteract it as good
as he can.”
“So he found another
target?”
“No, he believes that it is
the Potter child who the prophecy referred to.”
She was genuinely confused.
“I don’t think I understand, Savvy… How does he think he can get to the child
without getting past its parents for a start?”
“He said he’ll kill Potter
and the child, but leave Lily alone.”
She tilted her head and
snorted. “Yeah, right. As if that was
going to work!”
Severus clearly forgot his
reserve for a second, because he goggled at her. “What d’you mean?”
“No mother – not one – will step aside if someone
threatens her child, Savvy!” Subconsciously,
she pressed Draco closer to her bosom, almost waking him up by her vigour.
“What a goddamned fool that man is!”
“I – you mean – what do you mean?” he gasped.
“I mean what I just said.
Not even the lowest animals would give up their offspring, let alone a human
mother. Lily Evans won’t make an exception of that rule. Why’s he being so clement anyway? That doesn’t sound
like him at all.”
But Severus gave no answer,
his face twisted in a mask of shock and horror, staring alternately at the baby
and her.
“Oh! I see,” she murmured at
last, on the one hand gratified that she had pecked him right, on the other
truly commiserating the poor sod. “So you... He means to do you a favour, then?
That’s it, isn’t it? He means to spare her because of you?”
He nodded very, very slowly,
his mind clearly occupied. She felt severe pangs of remorse when proceeding
mercilessly, “It won’t work like that, Savvy. Beg for her life as much as you
please, she’ll not thank you for it.”
“I know that!” he cried
impatiently and made a gesture as if to shirk away an irksome fly. “That’s not
why I – that wasn’t my reason!”
“No, you don’t know what I’m
talking about, clearly. I don’t mean to say she’ll not throw herself into your
arms with gratitude. I mean to say she won’t have it. If the Dark Lord wants to
get to her child, he’ll have to get past Lily for a start, and as the child’s
mother, she’ll fight until her dying breath. Your plea for mercy was utterly
wasted. That’s what I mean, plain and
simple.”
“But – but...” His face was
hidden by his hair, but even though he clearly tried to control his voice, she
could still hear a kind of hysteria in it when he went on, “But what else could
I have done than plead for her life, Cissa? I – I cannot – I cannot let her be
murdered!”
He looked up, his eyes wide
with eloquent despair, and she said softly, “It was good you did that.”
“For what though?! For
what? They’ll all die, no one survives if the Dark Lord wants to see them
dead, they’re going to be murdered, and it’ll be my fault!” He sounded
decidedly hysterical. “I’ll be the one with the blood of Lily Evans on my
hands, Cissa, me, me! And her baby’s!”
He avoided looking at Draco.
Narcissa slowly reached out to touch her old friend’s arm, but he shrank away.
“Savvy,” she murmured fondly, “You cannot save them. It’s good that you tried, but the way things are now,
you’ve got to –”
“Accept it?” His voice was
acerbic. “Yes, I suppose that’d be the rational thing to do, wouldn’t
it!”
Narcissa closed her eyes for
a minute, taking a deep breath and summoning all her courage, all her will, all
her capacity for cruelty. She loathed to pry on him in his despair, but told
herself she was doing the only possible thing. “There might be another way,
Savvy.”
He gave a start, hope
flaring up in his black eyes. “Yes? What is it?”
“Slowly, slowly. First I
need to know how far you’re willing to go.”
“Plus significas, quam
loqueris,*”
he said softly, giving her a weak, defeated smile.
“Taceat, qui magna molitur!*”
“You must know you can rely
on me, Cissa. What’s more – I’d do anything not to be the one that betrayed
Lily!”
“What does Lucius say to
that philosophy?”
“He thinks the same.” She
made a little pause. “You do know what’s the only thing that’d help us all on
the long term?”
He raised a brow and stared
at her for a minute until his lips curled into a soft smirk. He chuckled
incredulously. “You don’t mean that!”
“Trust me, boy, I do! The
world’s better off without him!”
“And since when do you
give a damn about the world?”
“The world!” she scoffed.
“Take a look at my son, Severus! Look at him! He’ll need a
father, don’t you think? Lucius and Draco are everything to me, and I will
fight like a lioness to keep them both safe. This war – everything
really – it freaks me out! For six damned years, I go to bed at night and never
know if I’ll be a widow by the morning! And now I’ve additionally got to fret
if my son’s made an orphan! They can kill each other for all I care, but that
they hazard my husband, and indirectly me and my son, is not to be suffered.
Not by me. They won’t take Lucius away from me, I will not stand for it!
Neither jail nor death will claim him as long as I have a say in it!”
“But you don’t have a say in
it,” he said softly, not daring to look at her glowing eyes. She resembled her
oldest sister in this moment, the same fierceness, the same determination, as
if Bellatrix Lestrange had put on a blond wig and charmed her eyes blue. One
did not light-heartedly talk back to that one either.
“You better start believing
that I have, boy! Only because I prefer to stay at home with my hands in my
lap, it doesn’t mean that I am weak, or powerless. Mark my words, neither of us
will go down without putting up a good fight! The only power that your lordship
has over me is that he can threaten my family, and I will not allow him to do
so!”
“Narcissa! Be sensible!” he
cried. “You can try and see to it that Lucius stays at home as much as
possible. Be careful though that the Dark Lord doesn’t feel slighted.”
“And how long does that keep
him at bay?! Until the next time when he gets to hear some nonsense, and
decides that he better disposes of Lucius, too? Or Draco? I know he’s powerful
– but he’s not invincible. Think of Lily Evans, Savvy! You are ready to
defy him anyway! And you’re not alone. I will help you as good as I can!”
“A minute ago, you told me that
your child needs a father, and now you,
his mother, wants to fight the Dark
Lord?!”
“There are far more subtle
ways of combat than hurling curses at each other,” she said dangerously quietly
and rocked the baby in her arms that had begun to flutter when his mother had
raised her voice.
“Get real, Narcissa! I know
what you are playing at
and I understand your fear, but that won’t do! You cannot fight someone who’s
immortal!”
“Immortal!” She spat the
word. “You get real, Savvy! Nobody, nobody is immortal!
The high gods of Babylon and Egypt went down because they weren’t immortal!
They were nothing but very gifted sorcerers with Animagic powers, and most of
all, a fantastic publicity department! And that’s all your Lord Voldemort – oh,
stop it! – that’s all he is! I know what he is! I’ve known for a
long time! In fact, he is just like you, the son of a witch and a
Muggle, and so embarrassed of his lineage that he’d rather make up a new name,
and make everyone believe he was oh-so-special, but he really isn’t!”
He shook his head, slowly,
seemingly defeated. “He is. Trust me, he is. His powers are
unrivalled, and I know for a fact that he is immortal, too. He’s taken the
right steps. Why do you believe that we are called Death Eaters,
Narcissa? Not everyone serving him bears that name, not everyone serving him
bears the Dark Mark. We are Death Eaters because each one of us has swallowed a
little part of his mortality.”
“That is rubbish,
Savvy! He puts up a good show, I got to give him that, because he wants you to
be cowed and believe this utter nonsense. How could you, with all your
cleverness, fall for this rubbish? You drank his blood, so what? I’m not
superstitious. Blood doesn’t matter half as much as people believe, the
purebloods believe it because it makes them special, and the others believe it
out of some silly inferiority complex. The only way in which blood counts is
that of family, and that’s all it is good for! You know what he did,
don’t you? He’s taken the glamorous part of vampirism – and mind you, they’re
not immortal either, they simply do not age, but one good stab at their heart,
one well-aimed stroke of an axe, and they crumble to dust! That, some flashy
incantations, and the mere fact that he hasn’t died yet, et voilà, there
goes his immortality!”
She was right in some
aspects of her passionate speech – she needed two nights of deepest
thoughtfulness to understand just how right she might be. Concerning
other aspects though, she had never been so woefully wrong. Indeed, Lord Voldemort
had only made his favourite supporters drink his blood to make them believe the
stories he told them, and yes, he had been inspired by some vampire myths, and
a couple of other legends he had heard during his travels. This had been a
safety measure – he didn’t want them to know the true steps he had taken,
always aware of the danger that one day, they might want to revolt against him.
He secretly relished his own euphemism when addressing them as his ‘faithful
Death Eaters’, because he knew that they were just anything, but certainly not
loyal.
In a way, Narcissa’s problem
was that she was a little too clever, not too ignorant. Her views were
thoroughly mundane, she had read all the right authors, and all her reading had
brought her to believe that belief was the wrong approach. She didn’t
buy in anything supernatural, and immortality was just that, inconceivable with
the laws of nature. Of course, from her point of view, magic in itself wasn’t
supernatural either; it followed certain rules, invisible for Muggles, but
nonetheless existent and real, like gravity, like the laws of thermodynamics.
Immortality was against those laws, and in a way, she was right – because Lord
Voldemort wasn’t truly immortal in the original meaning of the word, and
his undoing for the time being was going to come about exactly like she
was expecting. Her crucial mistake was that she was so convinced of her own
argumentation, she had simply forgotten that he could have taken some other
additional steps to make it simply more difficult to kill him.
* A
dauntless mother has no fear.
* Beloved
children are given many names.
* You’re
hinting at more than you lead on.
* Be silent
if you have great plans.
*****
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