Chapter Text
Cilla was seven when Draco burst into the bakery, waving a small bundle of papers in one hand.
“It came! It came!” Draco shouted.
“Let me see! Let me see!” Cilla bounded over from behind the counter. She did not know what Draco was so excited about, but she was happy to match his enthusiasm.
Draco dropped his papers on a nearby table and smoothed them flat. Cilla leaned over them to look. She had finished Year 2 at her primary school, and she could read a bit, but the paper in front of her was covered in words, and she was too impatient to take her time with them.
“What’s it say?” she demanded.
“I’m going to Hogwarts!” Draco announced.
“Draco…” Narcissa warned. She had entered the bakery at a more sedate pace, and was seating herself at the table next to them.
“I mean… my school,” Draco amended. “I’m going to go to my school!”
“The boarding school?” Cilla’s excitement faded.
“Yes! It says I’m going September 1st!” Draco beamed.
Cilla didn’t say anything.
“I’ll come back for holidays,” Draco said, seeing Cilla’s face. “And there’s summer break.”
“What about weekends?” Cilla asked.
“Well, maybe some weekends. Depends on what the other boys in my dorm do. I can’t be the only one running home all the time.”
Cilla was not comforted by this answer, and Draco looked down at her, wanting to bask in his own good news, but wanting her to bask with him.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” Draco said. “And when you’re eleven, you’ll come to my school with me!”
“I will?” Cilla’s eyes lit up.
“Mother said you will,” Draco said. Cilla gasped in delight, bouncing on her toes. She ran over to Bitsy, who was coming around the counter with a teapot for Narcissa.
“Mummy, Draco says I can go to his school when I’m eleven!” Cilla cried.
“Oh, honey…” Bitsy’s brow furrowed. “I’m sure Draco’s going to a very nice school, but…”
“I think Draco’s school would be a good place for Cilla,” Narcissa said calmly.
“Oh, I’m sure but —” Bitsy was getting flustered. “I mean, I don’t think we can afford —”
“When the time comes, I will make sure she is considered,” Narcissa said. “If she is accepted, I will ensure that her fees are paid and that she has the supplies she needs.” (Hogwarts did not charge tuition, but Narcissa knew that Bitsy expected Draco to go to an expensive school, and she did not think it was necessary to explain all the details at that moment.)
“Oh! Well,” Bitsy did not seem to know what to say to this. She finally settled on, “That’s very kind of you.”
“Of course,” Narcissa said. “We’re very fond of dear little Cilla.”
Bitsy remembered the teapot in her hand, and she busied herself with Narcissa’s tea, looking relieved to find something to do with herself.
A much more cheerful Cilla, in the meantime, went back to Draco and his letter. Bitsy eventually sat down with Narcissa and chatted about normal things, and if she heard snippets of Cilla and Draco’s conversations about owls or potion ingredients, she put it down to children and their endless imaginations.
***
“Cilla’s so excited to go to Hogwarts,” Draco announced over dinner that night.
“Cilla?” Lucius Malfoy paused, his fork halfway to his mouth.
“Yes, I showed her my Hogwarts letter.” Draco happily waved the paper that he was still carrying around.
“You’re talking about the little mudblood in the village?” Lucius clarified. “The baker’s daughter? Do you mean to say you told her she was going to Hogwarts?”
“Mother said she would.” Draco was beginning to wilt under his father’s sharp stare.
“Cissy.” Lucius’ gaze snapped over to his wife, who continued eating serenely. “You don’t know that that girl’s going to Hogwarts. She might not have enough magic for it. You can’t just tell her about Hogwarts before she’s been accepted.”
“I don’t see why not,” Narcissa said, taking a sip from her crystal glass.
“You’ve only seen one instance of accidental magic, have you not?” Lucius frowned. “When the girl was only a baby? You haven’t seen anything in all the years since?”
“Cilla is safe and happy when she is here with us. She has no need for accidental magic when I am with her,” Narcissa said placidly. She ate a green bean.
“When you are with her,” Lucius echoed. “That’s another thing! The one instance that you thought you saw. Well, you were there, were you not? Mightn’t it have been your instinctive magic rather than hers? Honestly, what’s more likely? We know you’re a powerful witch. You could have seen the little girl falling and reached out to catch her with your magic without thinking about it. The girl, on the other hand, a girl of no lineage, no history of power, no background…”
“She can use Hildegard’s Hairbrush,” Narcissa said.
“Hildegard?” Lucius said, bewildered. “Who is Hildegard?”
“One of my dolls. Father bought her for me when I was younger than Cilla. She was custom-made, very expensive. I was told to take care of her hairbrush in particular.” Narcissa paused to take another bite.
“Is that so?” Lucius raised an eyebrow.
“Hildegard’s Hairbrush functions as a simplified wand,” Narcissa said. “It can only perform one spell — changing the hair color of a doll — but it requires magic and intent to work. The child must say the color they want while holding the hairbrush, and they must focus their own magic through the hairbrush to get their desired result. It is a developmentally appropriate way to prepare a child for future wand work. Draco used to play with Hildegard’s Hairbrush when he was younger.”
“Did he?” Lucius said, surprised. “They don’t have… something else for boys?”
“I wouldn’t know; I don’t have any brothers. Father only ever bought the dolls and the hairbrushes. My sister…” Narcissa stopped herself from saying “sisters.” She wasn’t supposed to mention…
“We each had dolls,” she finished.
“I suppose it’s never too early for a boy to learn proper hair care,” Lucius allowed. Narcissa’s eyes strayed fondly to Lucius’ sheet of long, white blond hair that gleamed in the cold light of the candles from the large candelabra over their heads. The candles burned with a strange blue fire, and they did not melt, nor did they drip onto the table below.
“Is it possible that the hairbrush is actually being powered by your magic, or Draco’s, when the baker’s daughter tries to use it?” Lucius asked hopefully.
“I don’t think it works that way,” Narcissa said.
“I taught her to call her broom,” Draco volunteered.
“She has a broom already?” Lucius said, horrified.
“Well, my last broom that I grew out of, I didn’t really need it anymore, so I gave it to her,” Draco confessed.
“That was very generous of you, dearest,” Narcissa said fondly.
“You can’t just go giving brooms to possible, not even confirmed, mudbloods!” Lucius sputtered. “Her parents are Muggles ! What if she goes and flies it through the Muggle village?!”
“Oh, the brooms stay here,” Draco said. “She only uses her broom when she comes to see us.”
“Wait, can she actually fly it?” Lucius was struck by another disturbing thought. “Doesn’t it take…”
“Yes, the use of magic is required to control a broom in flight,” Narcissa confirmed. “Muggles cannot control a broom. And yes, Cilla can fly. Draco is an excellent teacher. He is so patient with her.”
“I taught her to call her broom!” Draco said again. “I showed her how to put her hand over her broom and say ‘Up!’ She’s getting better at it. She usually has to try a few times, but she can get the broom to jump into her hand now!”
“That’s wonderful, darling. She must be so pleased,” Narcissa said.
“She is,” Draco agreed.
Lucius, in the meantime, despaired of trying to reason with his wife and son, and turned his attention back to his green beans and potatoes. No meat tonight, but the green beans were good, fresh from the manor’s garden and sauteed in butter. Narcissa had recently decided to become a vegetarian, and Lucius had selflessly announced that he would eat what she ate.
Narcissa was a Black, after all. The Blacks must be allowed their eccentricities.
***
Over the next few weeks, Draco’s room filled with a variety of new school supplies. He modeled his new uniform for Cilla and let her page through his textbooks. They had too many words to hold her interest for reading, but they did have some interesting illustrations. She went back several times to the transfiguration book to look at the curious picture of the fuzzy teacup with ears and whiskers that twitched.
The most exciting, though, was the large eagle owl that now lived in Draco’s room. Cilla was allowed to stroke his soft feathers, and sometimes Draco gave her an owl treat to feed him. Once, Draco gave Cilla an oversized leather glove that went all the way up to her elbow. Then he put his owl on her arm. The owl was so heavy, Cilla immediately had to put her arm down on Draco’s bed.
But all too soon, the summer came to an end. Cilla saw Draco one last time. He shook her hand solemnly when she said goodbye, and Cilla felt very grown up. Then she went home, closed herself in her bedroom, and sobbed on her pillow.
While Draco was starting his first year at Hogwarts, Cilla started Year 3 at the local primary school. Her first week back, several girls from her class cornered her in the school yard.
“Why do you always wear those dresses?” one of the girls asked. Her name was Gloria, and she had hard eyes and a large pink scrunchy in her high ponytail. “Do you think they make you look rich?”
Cilla looked down at the dress she was wearing. She hadn’t given it much thought before she put it on that morning. Narcissa gave her so many dresses, they were nearly the only thing Cilla wore. Narcissa liked buying them, and Cilla liked wearing them. The one she was wearing today was particularly flouncy, the lace-trimmed skirt poofing out away from her body like an upside-down rose bloom. For the first time, it occurred to Cilla that none of the other girls wore fancy dresses like hers.
“You’re nothing special,” Gloria said, her hands aggressively on her hips. “Your parents are only bakers, everyone knows that.”
Cilla didn’t say anything because she didn’t know what to say. After snickering a bit, the other girls lost interest and wandered away.
At home, Cilla asked her mother to buy her some skirts and shirts like the ones many of the girls at her school wore.
“Much more practical,” her father said when he saw her in her new clothes. “You can run around without worrying about getting dirty now!”
Cilla had never worried about getting dirty in her dresses. Clothes from Narcissa rarely stained or tore. On the rare occasion that they did, Cilla could bring them to Narcissa, who would either fix them, or, more often, replace them with new dresses. Narcissa always wanted to buy more clothes for Cilla. The physical limitations of the closet in Cilla’s room (which Bitsy reminded her of periodically) were a source of great vexation to Narcissa.
Cilla did not tell Narcissa that she had stopped wearing her dresses to school. She still wore the dresses at home — she changed when she got home from school. And once a week, after changing, she walked to Malfoy Manor to see Narcissa.
Malfoy Manor was different now. Since Draco was not there to play with Cilla, Narcissa had started to take a greater interest in Cilla’s education. She showed Cilla how to write with a quill and ink, since she said that no one at Hogwarts used pens or pencils. Cilla thought the quills looked fancy, so she liked using them, even if it made writing more laborious. Most weeks she penned a very short letter to Draco (she was still only seven), such things as:
To Draco
How are you?
Love Cilla
and
To Draco,
I miss you.
Love Cilla
Sometimes she would just draw him a picture of a Snitch or a broom and sign her name.
Draco did not write back often, but he did tell her she could read his weekly letter to his parents, so that was alright. The first letter he wrote was mostly about an ill-mannered boy named Harry Potter who had refused to shake his hand.
“Why wouldn’t he shake Draco’s hand?” Cilla asked indignantly.
“It’s hardly surprising if he proves to be ill-bred, considering his upbringing,” Narcissa said.
“What is his upbringing?” Cilla asked.
“He’s been raised by Muggles,” Narcissa said. “A complete outrage. His parents died, but our people would have been queuing out the door to raise him if they’d been given a chance. There was no call to do something so ridiculous as to send him off to be raised by Muggles .”
“I was raised by Muggles,” Cilla said after thinking this over.
“That’s not at all the same, poppet. You have us,” Narcissa said fondly. Then she took Cilla up to Draco’s room and showed her the books on Harry Potter that Draco had in his bookshelf.
Narcissa still set out the dolls and hosted elaborate tea parties for Cilla, but now each doll held a picture of a different person whose name and history Cilla was expected to commit to memory. Cilla didn’t mind, though, because with the names and the faces came the stories that Narcissa told her over tea. The first faces that appeared in the photos turned out to be people who were related to Narcissa and Draco, so Cilla was happy to listen to stories about them. She looked at the photos and listened to Narcissa and ate tiny sandwiches and fresh strawberries. The manor’s gardens had fresh strawberries even in the winter.
“This one is Bellatrix.” Narcissa placed a doll with dark curly hair on the table in front of Cilla. The picture in the doll’s lap was of a young woman with similar dark curly hair and a proud tilt to her chin. As Cilla watched, the woman’s eyes narrowed the way Draco’s sometimes did, and she tossed her curls over her shoulder.
“She’s my oldest sister,” Narcissa continued. “She always looked out for me when we were children. That’s her dress you’re wearing now.”
Cilla smoothed her hand down the silky skirt of her lilac-colored dress in surprise.
“Doesn’t she want it for her children?” Cilla asked nervously. Narcissa had never told her that she needed to return or take special care of any of her dresses.
“She doesn’t have children, and she’s not likely to in the future. She’s in Azkaban.”
“Where is that?”
“It’s a prison on an island. Bellatrix killed some people. Are you ready for a biscuit, poppet? These ones are ginger.”
Cilla took a biscuit and chewed while she processed this information. Narcissa, for her part, got out a book with photographs of Azkaban and dementors for Cilla to peruse. The dementors sounded so horrible that Cilla felt rather sorry for Bellatrix.
Of course, she was shocked to learn that Narcissa’s sister had killed people. Cilla had never met anyone who was related to a murderer. But surely no one deserved to be housed with dementors for the rest of their life?
“I had to tell Draco about his aunt,” Narcissa said. “He will meet people at Hogwarts who know about her. I couldn’t let him hear it for the first time from someone else.”
Cilla understood. Narcissa had to tell Draco. And she was telling Cilla now for the same reason.
“Why did she kill people?” Cilla asked.
“She killed people she didn’t like,” Narcissa said.
“How did she kill them?”
“She used her wand.”
“Wands can kill people?” This was news to Cilla. She knew Narcissa had a wand. She had seen her use it many times, and she accepted it as part of the magic of Malfoy Manor. When she was younger, she had told her mother about it. Bitsy thought it was lovely of Narcissa to play make-believe with Cilla.
“It’s against the law to use a wand to kill people,” Narcissa said. “That’s why Bellatrix is in Azkaban.”
When she was done eating, Cilla took the doll with Bellatrix’s picture down from the table, and she included her in her games for the rest of the afternoon.
“If you would like, you can borrow that doll, but you must return it next week,” Narcissa told her. “That was Bella’s doll, and I would like it back. My father had it made to look like her when she was perhaps a little younger than you. She gave it to me when she got too old for dolls.”
“Too old for dolls?” Cilla exclaimed in horror. “How frightful! I’ll never be too old for dolls.”
“Neither shall I, poppet.” Narcissa ran her manicured hand down Cilla’s white blond hair with an indulgent smile.
The next day after school, Cilla took all her dolls downstairs to the floor of the bakery so she could play near her parents. She had a great deal of doll furniture, and she set out a long row of miniature chairs, and then set a doll in each chair. The dolls were all interested in meeting the new arrival — Bellatrix, as Cilla was calling her, since she did look very much like her namesake, though her child face was rounder than the face in the photo.
Cilla was sitting on the floor in front of her dolls, completely lost in her own thoughts (the other dolls were whispering to each other, as one of them had revealed Bella’s wickedness to the others), when a voice startled her into awareness.
“What are you doing?”
Cilla looked up. She was displeased to see Gloria, the girl from school with the scrunchy and the high ponytail, looming over her. A woman who was presumably Gloria’s mother was at the counter picking out bread, and Gloria had come around the counter to intrude on Cilla’s space.
“Why don’t you ever say anything? Can’t you talk?” Gloria said. “Are you stuck up or something?”
“I’m not stuck up,” Cilla said, frowning. This had been Gloria’s favorite phrase lately. Cilla had heard her going around telling the other girls in the class that Cilla was stuck up. Cilla did not know what to do about this. Unfortunately, her silence only seemed to confirm to the other girls that she was, indeed, stuck up.
“Why do you have so many of those dolls?” Gloria said, ignoring her. “They’re so creepy. Don’t you think they’re creepy? Do you keep them in your bedroom? That would give me nightmares, having all those creepy dolls staring at me in the dark.”
To Cilla’s alarm, Gloria bent forward with one finger extended. She was going for Bellatrix. She was going to poke Bellatrix in the face! What if she broke her? Narcissa would be so upset! Cilla had not given Gloria permission to touch Bellatrix!
Gloria’s finger zoomed towards Bellatrix’s face. Bellatrix opened her mouth and bit Gloria’s finger. Gloria screamed. She yanked her finger away and ran crying to her mother.
Gloria’s confused mother looked at the solid face of the porcelain doll that Gloria pointed out from a safe distance. Cilla was no help in explaining what had happened, so Gloria’s mother paid for her bread, and the two of them left.
Unfortunately, the seven-year-olds at school were perfectly willing to believe Gloria when she told them that Cilla made her creepy doll bite her, so this incident did not win Cilla any friends.
***
Draco came home for the Christmas holidays, which was lovely, but Cilla didn’t get to see him nearly as much as she had hoped, between the Malfoys' many family and social engagements. The visits that she was able to make to the manor were not on the usual schedule, so she ran the risk of running into Mr. Malfoy, sometimes literally.
Once, when she was playing hide-and-seek with Draco (the only rule from Narcissa was that they were not to open anything that was locked — Cilla did not understand why Narcissa thought they would be able to in the first place, but she didn’t argue), Cilla ran full tilt into Mr. Malfoy as he was exiting a room. Catching her balance, she looked up at him, wide-eyed and startled. He didn’t say anything, but one glance at his face was enough to send Cilla scampering away again as quickly as she could, forgetting to even apologize. She found Narcissa in the drawing room, and she shadowed her until a grumpy Draco emerged, wanting to know why Cilla had begged to play hide-and-seek if she wasn’t even going to look for him.
Cilla did not know why Mr. Malfoy did not like her, but she was sure he did not. He had never done anything in particular to make Cilla fear him, but fear him she did.
***
Summer was a dream. Draco was home for weeks on end, and it was like he had never left. Cilla saw him often. Rather than tell her which days she was allowed to come to the manor, Narcissa or Draco told her when she was not allowed to come. Otherwise, she was welcome to come as she pleased.
Draco did spend some of his time with his friends from school, but he had grown up mostly on his own, with his mother and Cilla, and he fell easily back into old habits. Occasionally, he invited his friends to fly on his pitch with him, but more often, it seemed easier to wait for Cilla to show up and fly with her instead.
One late summer day, Cilla had barely touched the doorbell when one of the large, double doors flew open.
“There you are,” Draco said, holding the open door. “Do you want to see something disgusting? It only just came this morning.”
“What is it?” Cilla asked, following him into the manor.
“Come see.” Draco beckoned her into the dining room, where he picked up a newspaper from off the long, grand dining table. “Take a look at that!”
Cilla frowned at the front page that Draco was brandishing at her. She was eight years old, and she never read the newspaper because she thought it looked boring.
“What is it?” she asked again.
“Look,” Draco said impatiently, pointing to the large moving image on the newspaper. “It’s Harry Potter. With Gilderoy Lockhart.” The second name didn’t mean anything to Cilla, but she recognized the first.
“That’s Harry Potter?” she said, interested. “I read your books about him. And your letters, of course.” Harry Potter made frequent appearances in Draco’s letters home.
“I was at the bookstore when they took this picture.” Draco sneered down at the photo. “Look at him. He thinks everyone just loves him.”
“He looks like he’s trying to get out of the picture,” Cilla said. Only part of Harry Potter was visible in the frame. He seemed to be trying his level best to escape from Lockhart, who had a vice-like grip on his arm and was attempting to pull him back into view.
“He’s so pleased with himself, up there with Lockhart, getting all that attention. He makes me sick.” Draco picked up a pair of scissors from off the table and began slicing them aggressively through the newspaper.
“What are you going to do with the picture?” Cilla asked after a moment.
“What?” Draco looked up at her.
“The picture you’re cutting out. What are you going to do with it?”
Draco looked down guiltily at the newspaper photo of Harry and Lockhart that he had indeed just finished cutting out.
“My parents don’t keep the newspapers. They would just throw it out,” he said.
“Oh.” This didn’t really explain anything, but Cilla knew by now that sometimes the Malfoys did not like to explain things, and they got irritable if pressed. She would probably figure out what Draco was doing if she just kept quiet about it and kept watching him.
***
Draco went back to Hogwarts with a new broom that he was extremely pleased with, because he said it was better than Harry Potter’s broom. Before he left, he presented Cilla with another of his old brooms, giving her an upgrade as well.
Cilla went back to her primary school. She wrote letters to Draco, and he wrote back to ask for pastries from her parents’ bakery. Narcissa began placing regular orders for care packages, which Cilla delivered to her door.
For Christmas, Draco asked for and received a camera (apparently he’d seen a new first year at Hogwarts who had one). After that, he would sometimes send photos back from school, which Narcissa would frame and put on display. The images in the photos moved, like all the photos in the Malfoy home. Cilla often lingered over the photos when she visited the manor, watching Draco waving with his friends, or zooming around a Quidditch pitch, a looming castle at his back. She would be there with him in a few more years. He had promised.
Cilla turned nine, and then ten. And then, finally, she turned eleven.