Chapter Text
“Look at her, Draco, isn’t she lovely?”
Narcissa was sitting at a round table in a small, cheerful bakery. Her four-year-old son, standing at her side, peered dubiously at the newborn in his mother’s arms.
“She looks like she could be yours,” the baby’s mother said. Bitsy, who ran the bakery along with her husband, had her light brown hair up in a bun and a floral printed apron over her clothes. She was sitting across from Narcissa, watching her admire Bitsy’s child. Her eyebrows suddenly knit together as she second-guessed her words. “No offense meant, marm.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” Narcissa smiled, unconcerned. “What do you think, Draco? Is this your new little sister?” She held the baby up to her son. Four-year-old Draco had fine, white blond hair and grey eyes that narrowed, unsure at his mother’s words.
The baby squirmed and made a small mewling sound as she opened her eyes, blinking at the light. Her eyes were darker than Draco’s, and she hardly had any hair. But the wisps on the top of her head were the same white blond as Draco’s.
“Pricilla,” Narcissa murmured, tucking the baby securely against her body to calm her. “Welcome to Larkhill.”
Larkhill was the tiny Muggle village near Malfoy Manor, in Wiltshire County. The far off ancestors who built the manor had chosen the spot for its proximity to Stonehenge, a magically powerful location. The Malfoys owned most of the village, and many of the residents were their tenants. Bitsy’s bakery was one of the Malfoy properties. Narcissa had discovered it, and Bitsy, shortly after her marriage to Lucius.
Yes, Narcissa had a house elf at home to cook for her. And yes, the manor was connected to the Floo Network, and Narcissa could apparate to anywhere in Great Britain (international apparition was restricted, not to mention dangerous for longer distances). But sometimes Narcissa just wanted to walk down to the village, sit in a cozy bakery, and have a chat with Bitsy over tea and fruit tart. Bitsy made delectable fruit tarts, filled with a smooth yellow custard and topped with a tempting array of raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries.
Narcissa was a pureblood supremacist.
Narcissa had a Muggle friend.
These things were both true.
***
Narcissa was at the bakery again, sitting at her usual table with a cup of tea and a scone. It was a quiet mid-morning, and Bitsy was in the back. Five-year-old Draco was at home with his tutor, learning how to read. Narcissa was alone in the front of the bakery, aside from one-year-old Pricilla, who was climbing a chair.
Narcissa sipped her tea and watched the tiny girl while she waited for Bitsy to come back and entertain her with village gossip. Pricilla had slightly more hair now. It was still short, but it covered her whole head, and it was still the exact same white blond as Draco’s.
Pricilla had scrambled up onto the chair she was climbing. Holding onto the back of the chair, she pulled herself into a standing position. Pleased with herself, she bounced up and down and babbled.
The chair tipped.
It happened so quickly, Narcissa had no chance of stopping it. She winced, bracing herself for the crash and the following wail.
But nothing happened.
Pricilla giggled. She was on all fours, still holding on to the back of the tipped chair, which was now hovering a couple inches off the ground. The toddler crawled off the chair onto the tile, and without her weight, the chair clattered gently to the floor.
Narcissa sipped her tea and watched the small blonde child.
***
“Lucius,” Narcissa said. She was seated at her dressing table with her wand out, watching herself in the mirror as she dropped her make-up glamours. They had to be removed at night and reapplied in the morning, or they made one’s features go blurry.
“Yes, love?” Lucius’ voice came slightly muffled from his closet, where he was changing into his night clothes.
“You’ll never guess what happened today.”
“Do tell.”
“Do you want to know?”
“I’m on the absolute edge of my seat, dearest.”
Narcissa picked up a brush and began brushing her long, yellow hair.
“You remember Bitsy’s little girl, Cilla?”
“Who?”
“Down at the village. Bitsy, at the bakery?”
“Ah, with the tarts. Yes.”
“She had a baby about a year ago. Pricilla. I told you, she looks just like Draco when he was a baby.”
“Right. Pricilla.” Lucius emerged from his closet wearing dark blue night robes. He was always handsome, tall and broad-shouldered, with his shocking white blond hair that was longer than Narcissa’s. But his night robes made him look softer. Narcissa thought he looked cuddly. She was one of very few people in the world who had ever had this thought about the usually imposing Lucius Malfoy.
“Cilla nearly had a bad fall today, off a chair,” Narcissa said. “But she caught herself. With accidental magic.”
“Are you sure?” Lucius raised his eyebrows.
“Quite sure. The chair was hovering.”
“Did the Muggles see?”
“No, I was alone with her.”
“Well.” Lucius shrugged off his surprise. “It might not be enough to get her to Hogwarts. Could be a one-off.”
“I don’t think so, it was an obvious use of magic. I could clearly see the child has power.”
“Hmm,” Lucius said.
“Louie, darling, I wish you would come with me to see her.”
“Why’s that?”
“She’s the loveliest baby, with blond hair just like Draco. She could easily be his little sister. Honestly, no one would ever guess that she wasn’t ours.”
“Cissy.” Lucius had come to stand behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders. “If you want another baby, we can make it happen. There might be new potions we can try. I could ask Sev —”
“Oh no,” Narcissa waved him off. “Who knows how many years it would take. And I hated being pregnant. The perfect little girl is already right there, and she has magic! It would be so easy, Lucius…”
“Didn’t you say she’s already a year old? People know you didn’t have a baby a year ago.”
“We could go to the continent for a few years. Stay away long enough to muddle the timeline for anyone who’s paying attention.”
“You’d have to find new tutors for Draco. His current ones may not care for the French.” Lucius assumed that she would go to France, because if it were him, he would go to France.
“Just think how much Draco’s French would improve, though,” Narcissa said.
“What about the Muggle parents? And the village? Everyone who knows of the girl’s existence?”
“We could obliviate them easily enough. Muggle minds are weak,” Narcissa said dismissively.
“That’s a lot of people.”
“Not so many. The village is small. And you and I are powerful enough.” She met his gaze in the mirror and smiled. He squeezed her shoulder affectionately, but she saw an uncertain look in his eyes. He was not quite sure if she was serious or not.
“I suppose if we raised her, she would turn out all right,” Lucius said slowly. Not like all those other mudbloods. The words went unsaid, but were understood by both.
“Exactly. We would bring her up properly,” Narcissa said.
“You know if the Ministry found out, we could go to Azkaban,” Lucius said.
“You could think of some explanation. Perhaps her parents abused her because they were afraid of her magic.”
“We could actually come out of it with our reputations improved,” Lucius said, surprised. “Look at the Malfoys, rescuing the poor little mudblood.”
“See, darling, we could make it work!” Narcissa gushed.
***
Perhaps “friend” is too strong a word to use to describe Narcissa’s relationship with Bitsy. People do not usually make plans (even idly) to steal their friends’ babies. But Narcissa had never been good at making friends. She was close with her family: her husband, her sisters. She still thought of herself as having a close relationship with her sisters, despite not having spoken to either of them in years. That was due to external factors, not to anything personal between them.
Narcissa saw Bitsy more often than she did any other woman. And in the end, she did not kidnap Bitsy’s baby. Instead, the week after Cilla’s display of accidental magic, Narcissa brought her a green dress embroidered with white daisies. It was spelled to resist stains, but Narcissa didn’t tell Bitsy that.
The next week, Narcissa dressed Draco in a modern robe set that came with matching trousers. The outer robe was shorter than traditional robes, ending at Draco’s knees, and the front split open at the waist to allow Draco to run freely. Narcissa herself wore a set of robes in a style similar to a long Muggle dress. She knew their clothes did not exactly match current Muggle fashion, but she also knew the villagers would ascribe their appearance to the eccentricities and the fashions of the very rich.
After they were dressed, Narcissa brought Draco with her to visit Bitsy. Draco brought his wagon, and he pulled Cilla in it along the sidewalk outside the bakery. Narcissa watched Cilla, and waited for more signs of magic.
When Cilla was two, six-year-old Draco begged Bitsy to let them take Cilla to their house to feed the white peacocks. Bitsy was busy at the bakery, and did not need much convincing. Cilla was delighted with the peacocks, and spent the afternoon chasing after them through the Malfoys’ extensive grounds. A few weeks later, Narcissa gave Cilla one of her childhood dolls. She showed Cilla how to change the doll’s eye color by pressing her finger to the doll’s eyes.
When Cilla was three, seven-year-old Draco took her through the Muggle-repelling wards to the Quidditch pitch behind the manor. He showed her the new child-sized broom his father had bought him, and she watched in delight as Draco flew about, a few feet over the grass.
“This is magic,” Draco told her, matter-of-fact. “We aren’t supposed to show Muggles, but Mother says you’re ok.” Then Draco got out his old broom, an even smaller model that hovered only a foot off the ground.
“Is this one for me?” Cilla bounced on her toes in excitement.
“Well… ok,” said Draco, who hadn’t actually planned on giving it to her. “But it has to stay here at the manor. You can use it whenever you come over.”
Cilla eagerly clambered onto the broom and took off across the pitch. Draco followed at her side, ready to catch her if she started to fall.
“He’s such a good big brother,” Narcissa gushed to Lucius that night.
“Good thing you found him a little sister,” Lucius said.
Narcissa smiled, feeling gratified.
***
If one of Lucius’ friends had allowed their son to play with a Muggleborn, Lucius would have turned his nose up at them and called them a blood traitor. But Cissy could not be a blood traitor. She was a Black. The Blacks were, by definition, not blood traitors (Lucius conveniently did not count Andromeda as a Black, because she had been disowned).
Lucius had firm, inflexible beliefs. He believed that Muggleborns were inferior. He believed that Muggles were less than human. And he believed that Cissy could do no wrong.
So if Cissy wanted to keep a Muggleborn pet, Lucius was not going to argue with her about it. The Blacks had always had their peculiarities. Lucius had thought that Cissy was the sweet, docile, and, well, normal one, compared to her sisters. He’d thought she’d been spared the infamous Black Madness. But of course, such… eccentricities could arise at any time.
No matter. Cissy could do no wrong. Therefore, whatever she did must be right. It would be fine. Lucius would manage things. Everything would be fine.
***
By the time Cilla was four, she had a standing playdate at Malfoy Manor once a week. Narcissa would come to the bakery during the mid-morning lull to chat with Bitsy over a cup of tea. Then, when the lunch crowd began to arrive, Narcissa would take Cilla with her to the manor. There, they would find Draco with his tutor, send the tutor away, and sit down to lunch, just the three of them. The food was always lovely, and Cilla wondered where it came from, because she had never seen food quite like it in the village.
Some weeks, Narcissa would tell Cilla to bring her dolls, and they would have a tea party. Narcissa had given Cilla several more of her childhood dolls by this point. Each one had some small but interesting talent. One had a dress that could alternate between blue and pink. Another had hair that got either longer or shorter each time you tugged on it.
At home, Bitsy would stop to watch Cilla playing with the dolls every now and then, and she would frown in confusion.
“What will they think of next?” she would exclaim, shaking her head to clear it of the pestering doubts that she could not quite place her finger on.
But at the Malfoy Manor tea parties, Narcissa would bring out more dolls with even more fantastic abilities. One had a dress that could not only change colors, but also styles. Another had wings that actually worked, and when asked, she would fly after Cilla as she rode on her broom. A third had a brush that could be used to change the color of any doll’s hair. Cilla had only to say what color she wanted as she used the brush.
These were dolls that had to stay at the manor.
After lunch, Draco would play with Cilla. If the weather was nice, they would often fly on their broomsticks on the Quidditch pitch. If the weather was not nice, Narcissa would let them fly in the ballroom. When they tired of that, they would rummage through the wardrobes in the spare rooms upstairs, trying on the fur coats, the feathered hats, and the heeled boots of Draco’s ancestors.
Draco was eight years old. Most eight-year-old boys would not be willing to play with a four-year-old girl, but Draco did not go to school. He had tutors who came to his home, so he did not have school friends. He also did not seem interested in any of the other children in the village. Cilla had seen him walk right past the village boys as if he did not even notice them. This made Cilla feel very special. Of all the children in the village, she was the only one that Draco even acknowledged.
When Cilla was five, she started primary school. Her days suddenly became much busier, but she still visited Malfoy Manor one afternoon each week. Narcissa was very interested in Cilla’s schooling, and she quizzed her each week on what she was learning. Cilla got the impression that Narcissa was pleasantly surprised to hear that Cilla’s school would attempt to teach her how to read, but that Narcissa was not at all confident in the school’s ability to do so successfully.
Narcissa took Cilla to Malfoy Manor’s library, which was a section of the house larger than Cilla’s home. It had one central room, grand with vaulted ceilings and skylights, and then many smaller rooms shooting off from the main one, all filled with towering shelves and rolling ladders.
Narcissa showed her the section that housed Draco’s books from when he was younger. Each week Narcissa would tell Cilla to pick out a book, and Narcissa would read it to her. The stories felt somewhat familiar, like the fairytales that Bitsy read to her, but they were different. In Bitsy’s fairytales, the heroine might meet a witch who could either help her or hurt her. But in Narcissa’s fairytales, the heroine was the witch. And she was not always old and covered in warts either. The witch could be young, could be a girl. A girl just like Cilla. It was interesting to think about.
One story was about the wizard, Rumplestiltskin, who struck a fantastical bargain with a Muggle king and queen, all so that he could adopt their magical baby boy. Another story was about a Muggle couple who lived next-door to a witch. When they discovered that their little baby daughter, Rapunzel, possessed magical abilities, they traded her to the witch for some lettuce. The witch raised the girl as her own, teaching her everything she knew about magic, until Rapunzel was even more powerful than her adopted mother.
Narcissa put a possessive arm around Cilla when she read these stories, and Cilla would snuggle close.
Summer holidays came, and Cilla suddenly had much more time again, only now she wasn’t used to it. She was bored. She had met other children at school, but since the village was so small, the children at the school came from families spread out all over the countryside. None of them lived close enough for Cilla to walk to, and Cilla’s parents were too busy with the bakery to be constantly driving her to and from playdates.
But there was one house that Cilla did live close enough to walk to, and she knew the way well. She had been walking there once a week for years.
Cilla had only ever visited Malfoy Manor when she was invited. And she had never walked there alone. Narcissa always came to walk with her. But after having completed her first full school year, Cilla was feeling very grown up and independent. She was six years old now. And she was feeling very bored. So one summer day, when there was absolutely nothing to do, Cilla decided to walk to Malfoy Manor. She was not nervous. She thought she would surprise Narcissa and Draco. She was sure they would be happy to see her.
When she got to the manor gates, she opened them as she had seen Narcissa do dozens of times, and then closed them behind her to keep the peacocks in. Then she began the long walk through the front garden up to the great house.
As Cilla walked, she brushed her hand over the tops of the purple bushes, and a harmonized humming emanated from the leaves. Nearby, several large, white flowers turned as if to look at her as she passed. Cilla was not concerned; Draco had assured her that his mother would never allow anything dangerous in her garden. She was far too protective of Draco for that.
Cilla reached the large, cobblestone clearing at the foot of the grand entrance to the manor. She was about to start up the many front steps to knock on the double front doors, when she heard the echo of voices. Was Draco outside? Maybe he was at the Quidditch pitch.
Cilla abandoned the front door and made her way around the house instead. As she neared the Quidditch pitch, she slowed down, taking in the scene.
Draco was playing Quidditch, but he wasn’t alone. Two other boys, both larger than him, were also on brooms, and the three of them were zooming around, shouting occasionally and tossing the red ball that Draco called a Quaffle back and forth.
Cilla stopped behind a low growing tree and peered out, watching them. She had never seen Draco play with other children, and it made her feel a little jealous and a little mournful, that Draco would rather be with them than with her.
The Quaffle streaked through the air in Cilla’s direction, slowed, and began drifting lazily towards the ground. One of the larger boys came flying after it, but he forgot the ball when he saw Cilla.
“Hey!” the boy shouted, a sneer on his face. He dismounted, dropping his broom on the ground, and strode menacingly towards Cilla, who backed away involuntarily into the brush behind her.
“You spying on us, you dirty little Muggle?”
Cilla had heard Draco use the word “Muggle” before. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but she knew that Draco used it for the people in the village. She hadn’t thought it applied to her. It had an ugly sound, the way the boy said it, and she didn’t like it.
“What is it, Vince?” The second large boy had landed behind the first, and he growled when he saw Cilla. A big, meaty hand reached out and grabbed a handful of Cilla’s hair, and Cilla shrieked as she was dragged out from the cover of the tree.
“How’d a little rat like you get through the wards?” the first boy, Vince, demanded, as Cilla fought to free her hair from the hand of the second boy.
“You know what we’ve been missing today, Vince?” the second boy said, sounding thoughtful.
“What, Greg?”
“Bludger practice.” Greg grinned, and Cilla stopped squirming, her insides going cold with panic. Draco had told her about Bludgers, but Narcissa said they were too dangerous…
“What’s this, lads?” Draco had finally arrived, hopping off his broom and running towards them. For one second, Cilla thought she saw fear flicker across his face, but then his eyes narrowed, and his expression turned ugly.
“What are you doing here, Muggle?” Draco spat. Before Cilla could think of anything to say, Draco smacked Greg’s arm that was holding Cilla fast. “Don’t touch that, Greg, you don’t know where it’s been.”
Greg released Cilla’s hair, and Cilla backed quickly out of reach of the boys.
“That’s right, get out of here, Muggle! Go!” Draco shouted at her. Bewildered, Cilla turned and ran, the jeering of the three boys ringing in her ears.
***
Several days later, when Narcissa came for her, Cilla pretended to be sick. Narcissa came back later with chicken soup made with homemade noodles, and a ridiculous flat round lollipop the size of Cilla’s head. And a little dog stuffy that wagged its tail when Cilla scratched behind its ears. Cilla felt guilty all week for the undeserved gifts, and the next time Narcissa called for her, Cilla pushed aside her fear and went.
The two larger boys had been scary, but it was Draco who had upset Cilla the most. She was afraid to see him again, afraid to see that ugly look directed at her.
At lunch, Draco sat down with them, the three of them grouped together at one end of the great, long table. The food, sandwiches and fruit with tiny cakes for dessert, was already laid out for them, as it always was. The Malfoys were certainly rich enough to have help, but Cilla never saw a cook or a maid at the manor.
Draco took several small sandwich triangles from a platter, which he then offered to Cilla. Cilla took a sandwich, and then nervously looked up at Draco. He looked back, expressionless, and then turned his attention to his food. Cilla nibbled her way half-heartedly through the lunch. She thought she would stay with Narcissa when she was done eating. That would be safest. She could ask to play with Narcissa’s dolls again.
But when Draco finished eating, he turned to Cilla.
“Want to go out to the pitch? It’s a good day for flying. Not too much wind.”
Cilla turned her wide, brown eyes up at Draco, uncertain.
“I’ll move the goals down lower so you can practice scoring,” Draco offered.
“You’ll be Keeper?” Cilla asked.
“Yes,” Draco said. “And then we’ll switch.”
Draco never apologized. He did not explain who the other boys were, or why the three of them had said what they did. He acted as though nothing had ever happened between them. And Cilla wanted to love Draco, so she forgave him. He was kind to her again, so it was easy to do. But never again did she go to the manor uninvited.