The Malfoy Project

𝙽𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚊 #𝟽 - 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚍

A/N: If you're interested, check out the glossary for little tidbits on the little symbols you see around the chapters! It explains the mythology behind the reference and how it ties into my story (especially for the Narcissa chapters, as we go through the layers of Hell :D)

✼¹

     It was Boxing Day, and for breakfast we had leftovers from the feast the night before. There was so much that even after the elves had eaten their fill, there was enough to feed all of us for another week.

     Both my parents and the Malfoys were already there by the time I came downstairs. At informal meals when it was just family and close friends, we were allowed to sit anywhere we wanted. Lucius had come in late and the only seat left was the one next to me, which he took, lazily, and with his time.

     "Good morning, Lucius, dear," my mother greeted him, and my father echoed it gruffly. "Morning, morning," he said. Then looking at me, "morning Cissy."

     I mumbled it back and concentrated on buttering my toast. Through the entirety of breakfast I could feel his smirk on me, and, knowing his puerile nature, was deathly afraid that he would say something to hint at our... encounter. 

     He didn't. In fact, not a single person at the table uttered a word about our secret guest or the meeting that had taken place the night before.

     Our parents droned on about their own miserable affairs: movements within the Ministry and their friends' latest business ventures. I blocked them out, my mind still reeling from what happened the night before.

     What had Voldemort meant when he said there was in me "a darkness capable of more than I could ever imagine"? I knew he had a reputation for being intuitive; word was that he could read minds — what was I talking about? Of course he could read minds, he and I had a full conversation without even having to open our mouths! — but did that mean what he said was thoroughly true?

     And then there was after, with Lucius. I hadn't even been thinking; it was like my mind was an empty carriage with its door wide open — anybody could climb aboard and drive. Had Voldemort done that, or had it been my own doing? The possibility that the latter could be true troubled me deeply. Perhaps I wasn't as impartial as I thought, that I had an inclination to wickedness and profanity.

     I looked at the faces of everyone seated at the table: My father, strong-jawed and stern, with piercing blue eyes that aimed more to strike fear than command respect. My mother, willowy and elven-like in movement, but within her throat held a voice that could slice through the crystal goblets we were drinking from. My sister, with her coils of hair dark as ink, meek and quiet now in the presence of power, but unpredictable and destructive in the presence of weakness. In my presence.

     And then there were the Malfoys, so regal and poised, smooth where our family was rough. They played the game differently. Abraxas Malfoy achieved desired outcomes not with brute authority, but with a voice of quiet velvet and a mind as slick as a wet otter. Athena Malfoy barely had to raise her voice, much less a frail finger, to bring people to their knees.

     Here we all were: Britain's most powerful Wizarding families, consolidated into one room; a nest of megalomaniac gods bloated with toast and ego. I thought of how easy it would be for dissenters to blow up this house; send us up in flames like the head of a struck matchstick; scorch us from the face of this earth and begin the economy anew on fresh soil.

     And yet no one did. Not because they thought it a useless endeavour, but because to do so would mean throwing their lives off balance as well.