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As he sat in the window seat of his parents’ bedroom, watching his mother brush her long blonde hair, Draco couldn’t help but wonder whether she hadn’t wished that he had been born a girl.
When he had been a child, before Hogwarts, everyone had always said how much he looked like Narcissa. She would beam with pride, kiss his fingers and the top of his head, call him her sweet prince. But now they all said he took after his father, and while that made Draco stand taller and puff out his chest and feel like he was about ready to conquer the world, he couldn’t help but notice the sadness that clouded his mother’s bright blue eyes.
She must get lonely, he thought, being the only woman in the house. Both her sisters had left her - and were never to be spoken about - and her own mother was a drip who spent her days crying over her embroidery. Perhaps he ought to ask his father to buy her a pet. A Saluki puppy, perhaps. Something as dainty and elegant as she was.
Narcissa glanced up and caught his gaze in the mirror. “What is it, Draco?”
“Nothing,” he said hurriedly.
He looked away, frowning as he tried to ignore the heat rising to his cheeks. His eyes landed on the series of framed photographs that were clustered at the side of Narcissa’s dressing table - the largest was one of him, naturally, taken last September in front of the Hogwarts Express. He was in most of the smaller ones, too: sitting on the front row of the Slytherin Quidditch team photograph, at various birthday parties throughout his childhood, scowling under the shade of a parasol in Cannes. There was one of his parents on their wedding day, looking alarmingly young, and of his father with his old school friends.
Draco slipped down from the window seat and strolled over to the photographs. His hand drifted over the frames and landed on a heavy silver one, embellished with the curlicues of stars and oak leaves he recognised from the coat of arms of his mother’s disgraced family, the Blacks.
“Why do you keep this?” he asked. “Father says Sirius is a blood-traitor and will be given the Kiss as soon as the dementors find him, as he deserves.”
Narcissa paused, her hand hovering mid-brush. Her eyes darted to the photograph and away again just as quickly.
“Put that down, Draco.”
“Why? He’s just a stupid mudblood-lover who tried—”
“Draco!”
He couldn’t remember his mother ever raising her voice to him before. He looked down, frowning at the surly teenager who scowled back at him from the silver frame.
“Draco…” Narcissa repeated, more softly. She sighed and rested her hairbrush back down on the dressing table. “Draco, that isn’t Sirius.”
“What?”
“His name was Regulus.”
“Never heard of him,” Draco said dismissively, and moved to toss the frame back onto Narcissa’s dressing table. She stopped him, her hand darting out to grab his wrist.
“He died before you were born,” she said quietly, taking the frame from Draco. He stepped closer and watched the boy’s expression change from surliness to a small, almost shy, smile. “He was Sirius’s younger brother. He— he was very dear to me.”
Draco watched his mother’s face in her reflection, alarmed at her strained voice. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, clutching onto the photograph with both her hands. Draco squeezed her shoulder as he had seen his father do so many times before; Narcissa opened her eyes and gave him a watery smile.
“Come here, sweet prince,” she said, placing the frame down gently so she might pull Draco closer to her. He allowed her to draw his head down and kiss his forehead, even though he was too old for such things, because he knew she might draw comfort from it.
“We used to call Regulus our little prince, too,” Narcissa continued. “That’s what his name means - little prince. He was so sweet and docile as a child, he’d let Andro— he’d let us dress him up and carry him around like a little doll.”
Draco frowned, feeling his chest burn with an unpleasant jealousy towards a cousin he had never met. He didn’t like that his mother called him by the pet-name she had once used for this Regulus. He didn’t like the fondness with which she talked about him - Regulus had died, hadn’t he? That made him even more stupid than his worthless brother.
“How did he die? Did he have a dreadful illness?” Draco asked, a little spitefully.
He felt Narcissa’s fingers twisting in his robes, pulling him closer, and felt a stab of guilt.
“Regulus was killed,” she said quietly. Draco lay his head against his mother’s, draping his arms around her neck. “He was very young. He joined our Lord while he was still at school - I think, with everything that was happening with Sirius, that he just wanted to make us all proud.”
“Did he? Make you proud?”
Narcissa sighed. “He didn’t get the chance to. He was barely eighteen when the Ministry killed him. They never admitted to it, of course, but— but they must have done something truly terrible, because his body was never found…”
Idiot, Draco thought. Regulus had been just as stupid as the rest of the Blacks - wild and reckless like Sirius and Aunt Bella, or else as insipid as Granny Druella. She had been a Rosier at birth, he knew that, but she had been a Black for longer.
But he, Draco, was a Malfoy. He was better than them - better than the whole lot of them. Isn’t that what Father always said?
“Don’t worry, Mother,” he said, standing up taller and tilting his chin up, full of self-importance. “I shall make you proud.”
“My sweet boy,” Narcissa said, her fingers stroking the soft hairs at the nape of his neck. “You make me proud every single day.”
Draco smirked into his reflection. Who’s the prince now, Regulus?