Chapter Text
No matter how much he tried to fix it, the capelet of Draco’s robes would not cooperate. It simply refused to lay properly over his shoulder, and sat there looking more like a raisin than a purposeful accessory. This was unfortunate for two reasons: the first was that Draco was officially later than ‘fashionably late’ to his own party, and the second was that, in all other respects, he looked absolutely dashing.
Everything else had come together so perfectly— effortless, as was the norm for Malfoys. Tonight, Draco’s white-blonde hair was slicked back in a style reminiscent of his father’s (though Draco’s hair was considerably shorter), and his skin was flawless and soft in the remaining light of day. Most importantly, his robes made him feel powerful, confident: they were high-necked and made of a stiff brocade that reminded Draco of a sky after rain. Dramatic blue and silver, with little buttons down the front that winked like dew in the sun.
Altogether, Draco was very satisfied with how he looked. Except for that stupid capelet.
“Draco, dear,” Mrs Malfoy called through Draco’s bedroom doors, “are you ready?”
“Almost,” Draco called back, not looking away from his reflection. The mirror itself was grand and golden, so tall and heavy that it had to be propped up by three clawed feet. Standing there before it, Draco looked like an expensive portrait of himself, finally worthy enough to join the ones of his family on the walls downstairs. “At least another minute.”
“Really.” His mother sounded unconvinced. “You’ve been in there nearly four hours now, by my mark. I cannot fathom what’s taking so long.”
Draco chuckled to himself. She was guilty of the same thing, and was perhaps the worst of them both when it came to getting ready. Every morning, she rose early to wash and primp before her husband woke up and saw her looking untidy. It was quite a commitment, and one that Draco was glad he didn’t have to deal with.
“Just because I’m a boy doesn’t mean I have less to worry over,” he said. “You can come in.”
The doors swung open and Draco’s mother glided into the room, dressed in expensive silk robes that had bishop sleeves and white stitching like piped icing. “Our guests are here,” she said, walking up behind him and meeting his gaze in the mirror, “and your father needs to be upstairs in time to present you with me.”
“Can’t I walk down the steps by myself?” Draco said, pulling at the capelet again. Somehow, that made it worse, and he frowned at it, ready to give in.
Mrs Malfoy reached over and, in a simple motion, shook out the material so it fell over Draco’s shoulder— exactly how it was supposed to. “In parties like these, it’s tradition for parents to escort their child down the steps, to make a show of giving them up to the world.”
“Well, it’s not like I can’t walk on my own, I’ve been able to do that for a while now. It’s embarrassing.”
She gave Draco an amused look. “Don’t go repeating that outside this room, your father wouldn’t like it. Aren’t you pleased that your magic came, and that we have an excuse to celebrate it?”
“I am, Mother, really.”
“Hm.” She curved a finger under his chin and looked him over with soft eyes. “I should put you in blue more often. It suits you.” She let go, and the warmth of her hand remained. “My little prince. We’re so proud of you, Draco. You’ll never know how much.”
“I know,” he said, because she’d told him so before. “Thank you.”
A strange expression passed over his mother’s face, too quick for him to place. Something tugging at her eyebrows, flashing in her blue eyes. “Draco…” she said, then shook her head minutely. “I have something for you…a treat, for after the party.”
“Oh?” Draco said.
“It’s an article, they released another speculative drawing of the Potter boy.”
“They did?” Draco’s heart nearly stopped. He’d been collecting bits and bobs about Harry Potter for ages— sketches, like the one his mother was promising, but also context from the war, information about Harry’s parents, witness accounts from the night he’d gotten his scar, possible sightings. There hadn’t been anything new in a long time. “Can’t I see it now?”
“After the party. And no,” she said, anticipating his next move, “you can’t convince me to give it to you early.”
“Oh, all right,” Draco said. “But you’d better have it close by when the party’s over.”
Mrs Malfoy swept a hand over Draco’s hair and lingered on the back of his head for a moment. “The second our last guest leaves, it’ll be in your hands.”
“Good.” He was looking forward to that even more than he was the night ahead of him, and that was saying something. Tonight promised to be exceptional: full of people smiling at him, asking questions about him and how he’d gotten his magic, and giving him their full attention. As it should be. After all, he was wearing the perfect robes for it; his mother was right, he looked positively royal in his finery. “I’m ready now.”
“Let’s be off, then,” said Mrs Malfoy. She took his hand and guided him out into the hallway.
Excitement flitted about Draco’s ribs like hummingbirds. It was time to be presented.
Not a moment too soon, either, because as Draco thought this, his father appeared at the top of the stairs and started toward them. The Malfoys were all in blue tonight, linking their greatness in that matching hue— though Mr Malfoy’s robes were nearer to black. Then Draco realised that darkness wasn’t limited to his father’s robes: there was a frown twisting the man’s mouth, and he was positively radiating gloom.
“There you are,” he said. “Narcissa, I thought I told you to have him get ready somewhere on the second floor. Descending from the third is just preposterous. At that point, it’s a spectacle. It’s…tasteless.”
So it was going to be one of those nights.
“If you told anyone, it was certainly not me,” said Mrs Malfoy, with the barest hint of ice in her tone.
“Hm. I’ll be having words with Dobby, then, after the party,” Mr Malfoy said. He frowned at his son. “It is impolite to keep people waiting for you.”
Draco squared his shoulders, determined to keep things light. “It’s theatrical.”
“This isn’t the theatre. Tardiness makes a bad impression, and our guests are people you’ll want to impress.”
“Are they?” said Draco, suddenly worried. Had his father invited Death Eaters over tonight? Or maybe people from the Ministry? “How come?”
Mr Malfoy glanced backwards, toward the stairs. “You’ll find out why soon enough. Anyway, it’s too late to move you to a different room. Everyone’s waiting, I’ll give the signal. You are ready, aren’t you, Draco?” He narrowed his eyes at Draco’s hair.
“Yes, he is,” said Mrs Malfoy, stepping forward. “Doesn’t he look darling?”
“Yes, yes, fine.” Mr Malfoy withdrew his wand from his cane with a metallic swish, and propped the cane against the wall. He spread his arms and, with a murmured spell, lowered the lights three floors below. “Right. Come,” he said, waving them over to join him at the landing.
From downstairs, Draco could hear the faraway, creaky voice of Dobby announcing them: “Good evening! Your attention please! Introducing Draco Lucius Malfoy, son of Lucius Abraxas Malfoy and Narcissa Black Malfoy.” And as the Malfoys began their slow descent, he began describing Lucius and Narcissa’s many accomplishments.
Draco had never found it so difficult to go down stairs before, and he usually took them at a run. But his father’s mood was making Draco a lot more nervous than he would have been otherwise. He’d been on the wrong end of his father’s temper too many times, and already, it cast a palpable shadow over everything. Though Mr Malfoy had plastered on a thin smile for the guests’ benefit, that darkness spread from him, dimming the shimmering lights from the chandeliers, lowering the flames of the candles, and smothering some of the eagerness Draco had felt moments earlier.
Draco raised his chin in defiance of that feeling. He was well-bred. He was educated in social convention, and how to hide your emotions when it was necessary to do so. And it had never been more necessary than it was now, when he was entering the unknown. For all he knew, he’d be picked apart by the gathered crowd for the slightest hint that he was uncomfortable— or, later, by his father for giving into his weakness.
He thought of positive things, like sampling the amuse-bouche and other fine foods he’d smelled Dobby cooking, or sharing a few laughs with his friends. The latter was particularly exciting, as he knew his friends would cheer him considerably, and then he could do a better job impressing whomever his father had invited. Except…he couldn’t figure out who that was. The people assembled below, standing oddly in groups of three or four, were mostly unfamiliar: young girls standing in between their parents, with only a few recognisable faces amongst them.
Of his friends, he knew Pansy had been the least likely to come, since she was summering in Egypt, but he’d at least been expecting Blaise, or Crabbe, or Goyle to be there. Instead, it seemed Draco was entering a room full of strangers, none of whom were boys.
Loneliness hooked into his spine. Not a single one of his friends was there to save him.
Before Draco could ask his parents about this mistake, they reached the end of the steps, and Mr Malfoy took his son’s shoulders and whisked him across the room, toward one family, then another, and quickly the Malfoys was swarmed by their guests and Draco was forced to stay in place, turning rather than moving as he was introduced to each new family, whose daughters seemed to get younger and younger the more of them Draco met. By far, the youngest belonged to the Weisses of Germany. Leopolda. She was only a toddler — too young to even pronounce a name that long and complicated — and her hand was incredibly small in Draco’s when he shook it.
And then she turned his hand into a starfish.
Draco recoiled in horror, staring at the abomination now attached to the end of his wrist, but he was the only one who found it so terrible. Everyone else — including Draco’s parents, the traitors — seemed to find this wildly amusing, but no one more than Leopolda herself, beastly child that she was. Draco glared at the adult Weisses until they returned his hand to normal, and then he glared some more.
Just about all the other boys Draco’s age had gotten their magic way before he had. Crabbe and Goyle had gotten theirs years ago, which was almost as big an insult as this two-year-old showing magical abilities. Not to mention being able to do it on command— Draco had nowhere near that amount of control yet. No one was supposed to have that much control, that’s why they used wands. Before then, any magic was supposed to be random, if it came at all.
And that was the worst part. This child would never have to worry about being disinherited, or tortured, or killed because she didn’t show signs of magic before turning seven. She’d never have to start a countdown to her seventh birthday, or have to hide self-help books about kick-starting her magic, or wake up from nightmares about being a Squib, or live with the underlying and ever-present fear that those nightmares were predicting the future. She probably wouldn’t even remember her first spell, save for other people’s stories about it. Draco was old enough and unfortunate enough to know he’d never forget his. Dobby still couldn’t figure out how to fix the peacock, and Draco hadn’t been able to go near their aviary since.
It wasn’t fair.
“Smile, dear,” Draco’s mother whispered to him, when the Weisses walked away to show off their daughter to new people. “You’re back to normal now.”
“I don’t think so, Mother.” Draco shook out his hand, scowling, before testing it for bones. It still felt a little sticky, or spongey, or something— off in some way he couldn’t pin down. “Call her parents back, that little monster has ruined my hand!”
“If it still feels wrong later, we’ll sort it out,” said Mr Malfoy, without sparing his son a glance. He was too busy waving over the next family, who were short and pale-skinned and pushing their daughter along like she didn’t want to be there either. “Ah. Silas, Pola, welcome! You’ve met my son, Draco…”
And the cycle began again.
For an event that had supposedly been thrown in his honour, no one seemed very interested in Draco. At each stop, he was bombarded with useless information about the new girl: what she liked to do for fun, what subjects she liked in primary school, how many children she wanted, where she liked to travel, how many languages she spoke— nothing that Draco found particularly interesting, especially when most of them had very similar answers.
When there was finally a break from the bombardment, Draco asked his mother, “Why are there so many girls here?”
His father replied instead. “You’ve noticed, have you?” he said with a self-important smile. He grabbed two champagne flutes from a server walking past, and handed one to his wife. He seemed to be in a much better mood now.
“I don’t like surprises,” Draco said sourly.
“I didn’t care for my own party at first, when my parents threw mine,” said Mr Malfoy. “But halfway through it, I met Narcissa and I was instantly cheered.” He took her free hand and kissed it.
She bowed her head as if to hide a blush. “You do flatter me,” she said.
“And suddenly I was looking forward to my future in a way I hadn’t before,” Mr Malfoy continued. “She was beautiful and kind and more level-headed than I was, back then. What a wonderful night.”
Draco crossed his arms. “Well, that’s all fine, but don’t you have any friends with sons my age you could have invited?”
Mr Malfoy froze with his glass halfway to his lips. “Sons?”
“Well, shouldn’t I be meeting, er, boys my age too?” said Draco, growing quieter the angrier his father looked.
Mr Malfoy set his glass down, harder than he needed to. It landed on the table with a loud thunk that was quickly absorbed by the sound of the guests’ chatter. Some of the champagne sloshed out of the glass. “Draco, the purpose of this event is to introduce you to a young woman who will hopefully, someday become your wife. Hardly the place to make friends.”
“But what if I want—?”
“You will have time to make friends with boys later,” said Mr Malfoy with a significant look that Draco didn’t fully understand.
“But I don’t want to marry any—” Draco broke off at a miniscule shake of his mother’s head.
“I think what Draco means,” she said, “is that he’s too young to think about marriage right now. He’s barely seven, after all.”
“He’s older than we were, when we met,” said Mr Malfoy. “I understood my responsibilities as a pureblood, even then.” He rounded on Draco. “I thought we raised you to do the same.”
“It’s not that,” said Draco. He huffed. This was so unfair. He’d always thought he would have his whole life to find someone to marry. It was too early to be forced into thinking about bloodlines and all that. “How can I be expected to pick anyone good when none of us have lived long enough to do anything interesting?”
His mother stepped in. “These girls are all good matches, Draco, that’s why they’re here—”
“Not to mention,” Draco continued, “how ridiculous it is to try to picture myself getting married, especially if it’s to someone like Leopolda. I don’t care if we’ll be adults then, it’s— It’s mad, is what it is. It’s mad to think about. It’s a mad tradition. And worse, no one here even likes the same things I do, or has original things to say—”
“You’ve barely talked to anyone yet—” his mother said.
“—so it’d be impossible to pick even if I actually liked anyone here, and I’ve been hungry for the past half hour and no one’s let me get away to eat anything this whole time, and I’m miserable, and no one seems to care about me at all!”
Draco took in a breath and only then managed to look at his father, who he could tell — though Draco had made a point not to look at the man for his entire speech — had been steadily growing more livid all the time, and now looked like he had reached his limit. Draco shrank into himself, preparing for his father’s outburst.
“Impertinent to the last,” Mr Malfoy said in hushed tones, so he could say his piece without being overheard. “You should know better by now, Draco. This tradition is ancient, and you should be honoured to be standing here, especially after it took so long for your magic to manifest. For heaven's sake, you nearly missed the deadline altogether! You should feel lucky that I didn’t grow impatient and cast you out onto the streets and try for a new, wizard heir. Someone who had no trouble getting his magic to work. But since you are now fully legitimate, the duty falls on you to continue this family’s name. You know this. What you think of these traditions is of little consequence.
“Now. You will speak to the rest of the girls here, some of them multiple times, and you will eventually choose one to become your wife — and be lucky we are giving you that choice, rather than picking for you, which we could still do, if you do not cooperate — and one day you will produce a male heir, and then you will throw him a party like this when he shows signs of having magic. And so the cycle will continue.”
He grew closer, looming tall and casting a shadow over Draco’s face. His hand twitched, forming a fist and then flattening against his side. Draco tried not to flinch.
“Do not speak as though no one cares for you,” Mr Malfoy whispered, with so much force that Draco almost worried for the sake of his throat. “We have generously thrown this party in your honour, and you have thrown our efforts back in our faces. We do this for you and for the future of wizardkind. Do you not want a better world?”
“I do,” Draco said quietly.
“Good. I will hear no more disrespect from you. Especially tonight. Am I clear?”
Draco lowered his head. “Yes, Father. I’m sorry, Father. I’m just overwhelmed. I need a break, I’ve been talking for ages.”
Mr Malfoy’s nostrils widened. His hand tightened and flexed again. “What have I told you about excuses?”
“I’m overwhelmed,” Draco protested, instead of answering.
Mrs Malfoy touched her husband’s forearm. “Let him go. We should have told him what to expect tonight. Look at him, he needs a moment to recover.”
After a long pause, and a quick appraisal of Draco’s face and the hunch of his shoulders, Mr Malfoy said, “Fine,” with a dismissive hand wave. “Go into another room and calm down. Come back when you’re ready to take on this task with more civility. Don’t be longer than ten minutes.”
“Yes, Father,” said Draco, and hurried away.