Chapter Text
It had been an unusually wet summer, and today was no exception; London had been all but shrouded under the greasy downpour since midnight, and the streets were slick and shiny underfoot. A perfectly disappointing evening, and an entirely perfect evening, therefore, for disposing of disappointments.
Lucius Malfoy stepped out of the shadows, his boot landing in a particularly deep puddle and splattering his robes with mud. Another stain to be dealt with, although he barely noticed; his mind was wholly focused on the bundle in his arms. Because, wrapped in very fine (but very rain-soaked silk), was a two-year-old child.
Anyone glancing at the little boy would have commented immediately on his unusual white-blonde hair, or his sweet heart-shaped face, or the bright grey eyes that seemed far too intelligent for such a young child. To Lucius, though, the boy was a failure. The Malfoy estate’s healers had confirmed it three days ago: the child’s magical core was as stagnant as a ditch. A Squib. A blot on the pristine Malfoy tapestry.
Of course, Lucius would have insisted to anyone that he could have found a way to get past this… unfortunate affliction, had it not been for the second blight; the boy’s nature disturbed him. The toddler didn’t cry when the dark entities in the Manor basement howled; he giggled. He didn’t fear the shadows; he chased them. He didn’t play with the expensive teddies and toys he had been gifted – or, rather, he did. Just not in the way his parents were expecting. (It’s a strange thing, but nobody ever celebrates a child’s first attempt at an unerringly methodical dissection, even if the animal in question is stuffed).
Lucius stopped before a set of rotting wooden steps and gazed up at the rusted iron sign swinging above the door. St Jude’s Home for Foundlings. A miserable Muggle orphanage, true, but at least nobody would connect the unfortunate child to him or his clan, especially after he informed The Prophet that his son had expired from a wasting illness. It was perfect.
Carefully, almost gently, Lucius laid the bundle on the cold stone. Then, he drew his wand, pressing the tip lightly against the toddler’s pale forehead. “Obliviate,” he whispered, wiping away any lingering traces of the Malfoy nursery – or, indeed, the boy’s mother, who would undoubtedly weep for weeks when he informed her that their child had tragically expired. Hopefully she would recover quickly and provide him with a more suitable heir.
Then, with a flourish, he pulled out the letter he had scrawled onto the back of an ivory envelope. Five words, no signature.
Take him. He is nothing.
Without a backwards glance, Lucius turned and vanished with a sharp, echoing crack.
The toddler, left alone in the freezing deluge, did not cry. Instead, he blinked his grey eyes, crawled out of the silk wrappings, and sat happily in the mud. A fat toad waddled out from beneath the steps and observed him for a moment. When the boy noticed, he slowly reached out with a chubby hand, and smilingly coaxed the creature to hop onto his palm.
It was a scene straight out of a Disney film – for all of five seconds. Then, the toddler’s little fist tightened and he immediately tried to stuff the struggling amphibian into his mouth.
“Oh, Gomez, look,” a velvety voice sighed from the mouth of the alley. “What a spectacularly miserable little cul-de-sac.”
“Exquisite, cara mia!” a man’s voice boomed, rich and bubbling with manic delight. “A climate that positively begs for pneumonia. Truly, England is a paradise!”
An elegant black umbrella drifted into the alleyway. Beneath it walked a couple – for they were surely a couple; they were gazing at one another with an almost terrifyingly intense level of adoration – who seemed entirely at odds with the grubby wet street around them. The woman was tall, impossibly slender, and the kind of pale that put you in mind of a vampire (a theory entirely unhelped by the fact she was clad in a black silk evening gown that frayed into tendrils at her ankles). The man beside her was also dressed to impress in an impeccably tailored pinstripe suit; he was handsome, in the same way a highwayman might seem handsome before he pulls his gun on you, with a thick mustache and a smile that flashed too many white teeth. His arm was wrapped tightly around her waist, his lips tracing a path up her pale forearm.
Morticia Addams paused, her dark eyes catching a movement on the orphanage steps. “Gomez, darling. Look there. A discarded treasure.”
Gomez adjusted his cigar, his eyes widening. “By Jove! A miniature vagrant!”
They stepped closer. The toddler had given up on eating the toad and was now systematically pulling its legs to see how they worked. He looked up at the newcomers, his silver-blonde hair plastered to his skull by the rain, his smiling face completely devoid of fear.
Utterly unbothered by the river of filth, Morticia immediately dropped to her knees beside the infant, soaking her gown in seconds. She reached out a long red fingernail and stroked the boy’s chalk-coloured cheek, and positively gleamed when he leaned into her touch. “Look at those magnificent cheekbones, Gomez – he looks like a little ghost. Abandoned in the gutter, completely unloved. How exquisitely tragic.”
“A tragedy of the highest order!” Gomez cried, kneeling beside her and ruining his own trousers in the muck. Grinning maniacally, he extended a hand. “Show me what you’re made of, little man.”
The toddler grabbed Gomez’s thumb and, with surprising force, bit down on it with his sharp little teeth.
Gomez froze as the child giggled. “Querida!” he gasped, eyes shining with devotion. “He has the grip of a iron vice and the instincts of a feral hound! I adore him!”
Morticia noticed the damp piece of parchment Lucius had left behind, and she picked it up with two fingers to read the five words scrawled across it. “How dreadfully uninspired. They clearly have no eye for quality,” she murmured, a smile playing on her crimson lips. She scooped the boy up, cradling him against her chest, and kissed his head when the toddler found the venomous spider nesting in the lace of her collar, and began cooing over it.
“He’s a natural, Tish!” Gomez beamed, throwing his arms around them both. “A true gentleman of the dark! But what of the authorities? We can’t have them filling out paperwork, it ruins the romance.”
“Quite right, darling. Leave a token of our appreciation.”
Gomez grinned, reaching into his coat pocket. He pulled out a wallet that was bulging at the seams, so stuffed it was with £50 notes, and he hurled straight through the front window of the orphanage. The glass shattered with a spectacular smash that echoed around the streets, and, a few seconds later, panicked shouting could be heard from inside.
“A donation for their hospitality!” Gomez laughed, spinning his umbrella so the drops flew from it in a shower of crystals. Eyes darkening when he saw his wife with the toddler, he leaned over the little boy’s head to kiss her passionately on the mouth. “Cara mia,” he murmured into her lips.
“Mon cher.”
After an even longer kiss (the toddler ignored this after a few minutes, attention back on the spider), they turned and glided back the way they’d first travelled down the street, barely noticing the storm that was now howling around them. The toddler lay gurgling happily in Morticia’s arms, his grey eyes fixated on the sky above.
“The child needs a name, Gomez,” Morticia pointed out. “Something sharp. Something that commands the dark.”
As if understanding her, the boy pointed a tiny mud-stained finger towards a break in the heavy clouds, and Gomez looked up. When he spotted the shimmering constellation, his smile turned truly brilliant. “The dragon. Perfect!” He patted the boy’s blonde head.
“Draco Addams. Wonderful,” his wife purred contentedly.
Leaning over the little boy once more, Gomez planted a kiss on his forehead. “Oh, my boy,” he said happily, “the chaos you are going to cause. The sheer mayhem you will wreak. The unsuspecting mortals you will dazzle with your brilliance. The very high probability that he will commit at least one homicide.”
Morticia gripped his arm. “Do you truly think so, my darling?”
“Oh yes. Look at the eyes. You can see the spark of true madness dancing there.” Gomez ignored the taxis and buses, instead fixating on a battered black undertaker’s car that was speeding down the street towards them. “Ah, Lurch has such an uncanny knack for timing. How do you suppose he’ll take to our little stranger?”
“He will adore him, Gomez. How could he not?”
They both looked down at the infant, now sleeping contentedly in Morticia’s arms. The spider was clutched tightly against his cheek like a comfort blanket, and the arachnid nervously wriggled a few of its hairy legs at them.
“An entomologist, perhaps.” Gomez watched the car screech up in the road before them, sending a shower of puddlewater over them – or, rather, it would have, had he not brandished the umbrella before them like a shield. “Or a poisoner’s apprentice. The possibilities are endless.”
And then the pair of them climbed into the back of the car with their new son, and they never once looked back.