The Malfoy Project

𝙽𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚊 #𝟿 - 𝚃𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚢

✼¹     

   The night Voldemort received the prophecy, our Manor was in complete chaos. I had never witnessed Voldemort lose his composure like that. So consumed by wrath was he that he was almost in a frenzy. His eyes went black as hell itself, his pupils burning with all the fire of self-hatred he carried within his wretched soul as he screamed and cursed and swore to his demons that he would slaughter every single baby in the region. 

     He sent his generals to search for the identity of this infant, Lucius included. They ransacked libraries, stole documents from the Ministry, pored over birth registries. As for me, I remained anxiously at home, cooing to Draco, cradling him so tightly to my chest I nearly suffocated him, reminding myself that he wasn't born in July and that Bas's job as an Auror had nothing to do with him attempting to thwart Voldemort thrice.

     A week later, Lucius and his colleagues still had not found anything, and with each day that went by without word, I began to relinquish my fear bit by bit, while Voldemort grew angrier and angrier. 

     Two months later, they made a breakthrough discovery. 

     Two babies were found to have matched the prophecy: one Harry Potter and one Neville Longbottom. 

    When Lucius relayed the information to me in private, my immediate emotion was relief. Relief that it wasn't Draco, no matter how high the odds had been, and that my last fragment of love would continue to be safe for now. But when he told me what Voldemort intended to do, relief quickly turned to despair. 

     I knew the Potters and Longbottoms. They had been a few years below us, in the army Dumbledore had set up, together with my cousin Sirius. Despite the power tug-of-war we'd played when we were students, I never saw them as naysayers, let alone soldiers. I saw them as children still, as I had once been, innocent and young and forced into a war they hadn't asked for — that I had a hand in building. 

     I should have felt elated that at least two from the Order would be going down for this — that is two fewer people we'd have to fight. But whether it was the maternal instincts that had lain dormant during Draco's conception and were now rearing its head, or that being ripped so ruthlessly from Bas had instigated some compassion from me I never knew existed, I knew I no longer wanted to be even remotely associated with the smiting of another innocent family.

     We were on the brink of something bigger than the likes of anything we have ever known, and deep down, I had a sickening feeling that all of this, even if it took months or decades, would end unfavourably for Voldemort and the Death Eaters. But I had Draco now; his blood would be on my hands if my foolishness were to be the cause of our demise. I felt like I was trapped in an alleyway, the two walls closing in on me, with no way or time to escape.

     Every night, as I lay in bed waiting for Lucius to come home with news, I closed my eyes and hoped and cried and prayed. The gods had always been generous to the Blacks, but surely with the sins we'd committed at this point, they would have abandoned me. I prayed anyway. I prayed and prayed, for an escape, a sign, anything.

     Two days later, I received a letter from Ronnie. 

     Dobby had delivered it to my room. It was a plain white envelope, no sender, no return address. I opened it without thinking, and upon seeing Ronnie's familiar, elegant scrawl, felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room at once.

     Immediately I folded it up without reading it and slipped it into my pocket. Even though Lucius wasn't home, it didn't feel safe reading it in our room. I took it to Draco's nursery, the only place in the house that felt somewhat safe to open it. I waved my wand around, if any kind of dark charm might reveal itself. There was none. I locked the doors, and, tucking myself into the corner at the head of his cot, I finally unfolded the letter with trembling hands.