The Malfoy Project

𝙽𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚊 #𝟹 - 𝚃𝚠𝚘 𝚁𝚊𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙵𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚜

     ✼¹

     So it was established. Ronnie was dating Edward Tonks — a strikingly handsome boy with hazel eyes and a shock of auburn-blond hair. Hufflepuff. Muggle-born.

     At the time, the only thing worse than advocating for Squib and Muggle-born rights was to date one. And so the mob's attention was shifted from Bas and I to them. Ronnie told me she didn't mind it much because she was happy and everyone else could go to hell.

     Inwardly, I felt somewhat relieved, because this granted Bas and I the tiniest modicum of peace at last. If anything, the ordeal cemented the certitude that Bas and I were meant to be together. It was like we saw nothing — and nobody — but each other.

     One day, I worked up the courage to approach Emily Selwyn and ask her about her love affair with Amos Diggory. Emily had always been a proud and aloof witch, but I suppose she had been secretly in search of a kindred spirit, just as I was. After a night of chatting and a little too much elf wine, she told me everything; that she would give up her name and family to be with Amos. She asked me if I would do the same, and I hesitated. I hesitated for a very long time.

     "It's not the same thing", I told her. "Bas is a Malfoy, a pure-blood. I wouldn't have to give up my family for him. Not entirely."

     "But Andromeda would have to do it," she said, "if she wants to be with Ted."

     "Ronnie wouldn't give me up," I argued. Emily only laughed. "People do crazy things when they're in love. What would you do for love, Ronnie?"

✧

     What would I do for love?

     I thought about that question for weeks, fiddling with it like a thousand-faceted puzzle cube. The only person I'd wanted to discuss it with was spending most of his time on the Quidditch pitch.

     In preparation for Quidditch season, practices were held every other day. Bas had been reinstalled as Seeker on the Slytherin Team and could not shirk practices anymore. On days where there were none, he spent his time recuperating from practice and doing homework, and the midst of a Potions essay was hardly the right time to hold a heartfelt conversation about the empowerment of love.

     And so I was left to ponder the fathomless question alone, one that was one too profound for the experiences of a girl of sixteen to comprehend. 

     Love. 

     A notion that bore the greatest sailors and singers and poets since time immortal. People lusted it, breathed it, lapped it up like emaciated beasts of burden to a stream of fresh water. A force so powerful people fell for it poison and dagger.  

     Who was I to put a meaning adequate enough to that?  

     I would soon find out the burden of proof would not be on me, but someone else. 

     Lucius found me alone on the banks of the Black Lake on a damp March day. The umbrella of the willow tree provided much-needed respite from the noise and bustling of the castle, and perched on a large root that snaked high above the ground still soggy from the last of the winter snow was where I found solace in the works of William Shakespeare.

     "Hey," he said. I looked up from my book in surprise. It was the first time he'd spoken to me since the Christmas holiday fiasco. 

     "Reading?"