THE FURIES ▸ Draco Malfoy

Chapter Twenty-Three: THANATOS

He stopped talking, hatred filling his eyes, and Celicia took over. "And there is still no chance Pettigrew survived?" 

"Oh, there is every chance, Cece. The man is as much a rat in human form as his Animagus. I told him that more than once, but he never listened to me. If I had known―" 

Once again, Alastiare's words trailed off and he was overcome with emotion. Celicia watched solemnly, knowing that he had been struggling for nearly three years with the same thought. He could have done something. No matter how many times she repeated that he had no choice, Alastiare would never forgive himself for what happened on the night of October 31, 1981. Both of them struggled with the news of the Potters. Celicia pretended the tears did not fall at the loss of her old classmate, Lily. Alastiare ignored the guilt that festered more and more every time he thought about their deaths. At the end of the day, it was not the end of the Dark Lord that upset either one of them so greatly, but what came with his death. 

"Alastiare..." 

Her words were soft on her tongue, but every emotion that they were trying to say still burned through. Alastiare's head shook in denial, eyes moving away from her so that he could inspect the room around him. No one was paying any attention to them, except possibly Athella who only gave him a worn smile before she returned to her conversation with the Malfoy's. The dull, diseased emptiness in his bones returned as he looked on at the group of people he had devoted so much of his life to working with. The Dark Lord's followers, disguised into a room full of pureblood families acting as though their leader was not dead.

"I will not give up on him, Cece. Not like everyone else has. If it were me, I know he would do the same." 

Anyone eavesdropping would think that Alastiare meant the Dark Lord, but it was Celicia that knew the truth better than anyone else. Sirius Black was a name they did not speak out loud, but it rang like sirens in their ears with every passing day. Years could go by, and Celicia feared that her husband would never truly find happiness in a world where his friend was locked away for something that he could have prevented. He could have done something. But could he have? 

Celicia noticed that Alastiare's attention had sprung to a different area of the room, both of their stares softening at the sight. There was a small corner in the large space set up for the children, toys bewitched around them to fly past their heads and turn them each into giggling messes. One toddler in particular seemed overjoyed, her curly dark hair flying wildly around her flustered face as she moved to catch the figurine of Salazar Slytherin. At her side was a white-haired boy grinning as he watched her, and trying to shove her away from the figurine was her laughing cousin. 

Something solid, resembling a sob, made it hard to swallow her next question. "Will you ever tell her about him?" 

"Why give her something she has already lost?" he asked thickly, and she knew by that alone Alastiare was thinking of everything he could never tell his daughter about Sirius Black. 

"Because it shows the man that you are, Alastiare. The friend you have been. Your daughter will be proud of that―of you. She may never know him, but she can know of the man that he helped you be. Let her see that your past can lead her future. Show her that friendship can beat a war."

Alastiare scowled, his stare darkening sickly. "But that is just the thing. We did not win." 

"I don't believe your fight for him is over just yet." 

"It should be," he offered lowly, watching as the little girl reached with tiny hands to grab another figurine. "What more can come from fighting for a man whose life has already been sentenced away? Sentence my own, as well? Sentence yours? Hers?"