They say that one event creates ripples that stretch outward and have unseen far reaching consequences. Our story begins with a job interview, a prophecy, and a young boy who would bare the weight of the whole wizarding world. For Young Severus Snape who sat in the Hog’s Head sipping on two fingers of Fire Whiskey, it was prophecy that began to create waves. Severus Snape was a Death Eater, a follower of the Darkest of Dark Lords, Voldemort. He was Voldemort’s valued Potion Master and a member of his inner circle. So it was no surprise that as Sybil Trewlaney spilled forth the prophecy Snape set out to tell the his master what he had heard.

If Snape had been a more patient man, he would have waited a breath longer before placing his sickles on the bar and hastily exiting, but he was not. He took the precious words of his master’s defeat and hand delivered them. It wasn’t until Voldemort began to hunt for this prophesied child that he knew he had made a mistake. The prophecy places his beloved childhood friend Lily Evans, now Lily Potter directly in the path of the Dark Lord.

Snape felt, perhaps for the first time since he’d turned his allegiance to the dark, that he had made a mistake. There were few people that young Severus could honestly say he loved, few people that he trusted Lily Evans was and had always been number one among these sparse few. For days he tried to persuade the Dark Lord, beseeching him to leave the Potter’s alone, trying to offer other children who it could be… but Voldemort would not be swayed. He knew of two families that could have born the child, but Voldemort felt sure it was Lily’s child, Harry. That didn’t mean he didn’t decide that he would leave the other child alone, chancing that he might be wrong. He dispatched the LeStrange Brothers, Bellatrix, and Barty Crouch Jr. to find the Longbottom family. He would be a different man when he saw them again.

Snape was a smart man; he graduated at the top of his class. He had received his mastery in Potions in half the time of most who attempted it, so when it came time for him to find another way to save Lily he knew he had only one choice, Albus Dumbledore.  Dumbledore was a kind of distant grandfatherly type to Snape during his years at Hogwarts, seemly unaware of the abuse perpetrated by his father while at home and by the Marauders while at school. It seemed at times that a wall stood between them, but Snape was willing to do whatever it took.

If Snape had known that selling his soul to Albus Dumbledore would have done nothing to save Lily and would leave him bound to both the Dark Lord and Dumbledore perhaps he would have negotiated better. Instead, he swore on his life and magic to serve Dumbledore as a spy, if he would do everything he could to keep Lily safe.

For a short time, the span of months really though to Snape it had seemed like blissful years, Lily and her Husband and baby were safe. To Severus it seemed that the God, who had ignored him all of those previous years of his life, was protecting his Lovely Lily and her family and he allowed himself to relax.

Until that night, that Halloween night in 1981… the night the Voldemort found the Potters. He tried to get there, reviewing in his mind all of the spells that he might be able to use to stop Voldemort. Anything to give Lily and her son the time to escape… but by the time he reached their small home in Godric’s Hallow, Lily was dead. Her still form in that empty nursery sent pain so deeply into his soul, he was sure he would never fully recover.

He searched for the baby, Harry. A child not even a year old, but the last remnant of Lily that he had. The child was not there… and Snape was sure that everything was lost.

 ***

Severus, so caught in his own grief and turmoil, wouldn’t fully understand, that like the prophecy so long ago, his own actions were changing the lives of others until many years later.

*** 

Bellatrix LeStrange was born a Black. She was the eldest daughter of Cygnus and Druella Black, older sister to Andromeda and Narcissa. As a child she was the apple of her mother’s eyes, a good little future dark witch, like all those who had been born to the Black family for the last two centuries. She received her Hogwarts letter the day of his eleventh birthday and went with her family to by her first official wand (not that she hadn’t been give an unregistered one when she was old enough to hold it). As she stood in Ollivander’s Wand Shop a curious thing happened. Ollivander could find no wand that fit her. All the bendy and willowy wands usually given to children setting out to Hogwarts refused to work for her. Until he handed her a very special wand, well ordinarily special, it was a 12 ¾ inch Walnut wand with a Dragon Heartstring Core, but what made it special to Bella was the feel of it. It was unshakeable, un-moveable, unyielding. It called to a place in her that she rarely embraced. The stubborn side of her, that believed so deeply she could not be convinced otherwise.

Perhaps it was this side of her that made Bellatrix a target for the Dark Lord. A follower who believed so deeply that they would never be swayed, a child of considerable magic, good family, and strong belief… a child like that could further his cause greatly. So young Bella, naïve Bella, believing that Voldemort would save to Magical world form the obvious fracturing and dissolution had taken up his banner and marched into battle beside him.

It was from among his numbers that she selected her husband, Rodolphus LeStrange. He was a harsh man, quiet and above emotion. Bellatrix believed that perhaps in time she could come to love him, that perhaps they could raise a family together. Bella hid it well but the deepest desire of her heart was to hold her children in her arms, and for a time she felt that she could have that with Rodolphus.

At first he’d sneered at Severus Snape’s attempts to save the Potters. If the youngest Potter was the child of prophecy then the Dark Lord had a chance to change the war in their favor. They didn’t need to kill the child, instead they could raise him to be one of them. A child with the magic to defeat the Dark Lord would be an excellent addition to their ranks… but Bellatrix soon learned otherwise. 

There are times when circumstances force themselves into the cracks of our minds, even into a mind so unbending as Bellatrix’s. It was in a moment like that as circumstances began to alter her view… that she was forced to look at Snape differently. She’d never truly trusted him, but she felt a kinship with him. Her own empty home and longing to be a mother made her want to cry mercy for the child… but she couldn’t. So in her place, she silently appointed Severus to save the Potters, to save their infant son.

When one’s view of the world is forced to change, when one is force to re-evaluate their beliefs it is a slow process often taking years and it is a damaging process that can fragment the picture which dominates the landscape of their mind… driving them to desperate measures.

It was in the midst of these changes that a confused Bellatrix was sent out to find the Longbottom family. It was hard; none other than Albus Dumbledore, defeater of Grindewald and renowned light wizard, had cast their Fidellus Charm… but find them they did. Just as the news of the Dark Lord’s death at the hands of Harry Potter reached their ears.

For Bella it was a bittersweet loss. She believed that the Dark Lord was their one true and last hope… but he had lost himself in power… he had targeted an innocent child for the sake of that power. She sank deeper into confusion as her husband sank deeper in to rage. Her brother-in-law Rabastan was a cruel man, violent to the core of his black soul, and it was him who convinced the others that the Longbottoms must know something about where the Dark Lord was. After all, he told them, no child could ever destroy their Lord.

Bella didn’t enter the house with the others… she had paused for a moment outside the door when something caught her eye. It was a child’s blanket, a small faded hand made blue blanket with small giraffe’s littering its surface. It was obviously well loved, the color was fading and the fabric itself was threadbare from repeated washing. A child’s blanket… the though finally pierced the haze of her mind as screams reached her ears form inside the house. A child lived here… the Longbottom’s had a child… a child that would be killed if the others found it.

For the first moments Bella’s mind was a flurry of panicked thoughts, but she was sure that she needed to do something, and she needed to do it now. She disillusioned herself as she entered the front door. It hung at a sad disheveled angle it’s jaunty red paint scorched and crack from the others’ forceful entrance. She moved threw the living room, her eyes locked on the scene that was playing itself out on the thick carpet in the center of the room. Rabastan’s held the Alice under the Cruciatis Curse while Barty and Rodolphus held Frank. He was forced to watch as his wife screamed and cried for help… but could do nothing. Bella felt a wetness on her cheek; confused she reached up and felt tears.

She knew she had little time before they would notice she was missing, so she moved softly up the stairs. It wasn’t hard to find the nursery. A child’s screams though loud in the small landing of the upstairs, where drown out by those from the living room. Her finger’s grazed across the door, across the name painted on its bright blue surface… Neville.

Bella felt her breathing speed up as she entered the room and catch as she closed the door behind her. There in a small crib lay the crying infant. His face scrunched up in terror… the screams of his mother echoed in the room, filling the once cheery space with their haunting pitch. Bella had never actually handled a child before…never comforted once or held one in her arms… but as she reached for Neville Longbottom there was no hesitation.

She crooned his name as she lifted his small body into the relative safety of her arms. Cushioned his small fragile frame against her shoulder. Her voice was soft and husky as she sang him a children’s song swaying gently until his tears subsided.  She pulled him away from her shoulder for just a moment and found herself caught in his eyes. There was innocence in them, a trust that she had never seen in herself.

It was this moment, this exact moment, that years later Bella would mark down as the moment that changed her life. Until this moment she had wanted and taken… never giving back to anyone, but right then looking into the cherubic face of Neville Longbottom she felt a life grown inside of her… a kind of white heat that burned away that selfishness.

She was so caught in the moment that she almost missed the sound of heavy boots ascending the stairs, the sound was almost covered by the noise of both a man and woman’s screams… Bella knew that someone was coming to find Neville, but she knew with more certainty than she had even known anything in her life that she would protect this child until all the breath had left her body.

She drew Neville back to her, his small frame resting perfectly against the slight curves of her own. The connection between the two of them flared. The footsteps got closer and Bella apparated. The door opened just moments after she vanished with the child in her arm, she could feel the familiar pressure of apparating. The pressure on her eyes and ears, the dizzy twisting and turning. She held Neville closer, hunching her body around him as best she could until they seemed to be connected.

Barely a second later it stopped. Neville’s shrill cried reached her ears, as she soothed him. Swaying gently as she had before and humming the tune to some song she remembered Andromeda playing on the piano, she looked around her. They stood in the center of a large field. The waste high grass whipping about in the face of the fierce black clouds that where rolling in from the north. She glanced around and her eyes landed on a large welcoming stone home that lay just a short distance away. Bella knew it on site. Longbottom Manner.

She knew that it was dangerous to Apparate with no destination in mind, but her mind had been filled with thoughts of keeping Neville safe… this was the best place for him, it seemed that she knew that even subconsciously. Augusta Longbottom was a pillar of the magical community, her refusal to back down or hide from the Dark Lord made her legend… and Bella knew that she would raise Neville in the safety of her home with stories of his parents so he would know them.

Bellatrix knew the men that she had left at the Longbottom house; if the Longbottom’s were still alive they wouldn’t be for long. Her husband and Brother-in-Law had a madness in them that frightened her. She moved forward, clutching Neville. She came to the wards, afraid for a moment that they wouldn’t let her pass, but they washed over her and the child like water. Night had fallen on the field, but the lights of Longbottom Manner called to Bella.

If Bellatrix imagined herself entering Longbottom Manner under the cover of night before this moment, it was with a malicious intent in her heart… but now there was no room for a thought but those of Neville’s safety. They’d watched the Manner for days as they tried to find where Frank and Alice had hidden, so she moved through the house with familiarity, nearing the master suite.

The room was dark when she entered, a comforting wrap of velvet that soothed her frayed nerves. She relaxed into a small straight-backed chair shifting Neville into the crooked of her arms. A quiet lumos lit the room, casting everything in relief. Augusta Longbottom didn’t move, but Neville laughed and giggled reaching his chubby hands for the light. Bella moved it close and then away, making Neville scream in joy.  It was to this sight that Augusta woke. There in a chair beside her bed was Voldemort’s most ardent follower, her wand pointed at her Grandson, a smile stretching her pale lips. Augusta had seen the rise and fall of Grindelwald, she had seen Voldemort’s rise to power… she knew the cost of war. That those who truly suffered where children… she knew deep in her heart of hearts in the very pit of her soul that her son, her Frank was not coming back to her. That her daughter-in-law, sweet Alice who she considered one of her own was gone.

There are moments in life when negotiation must be abandoned in favor of honest and heartfelt pleas. Augusta knew that she would give anything to save her grandson, that she would give her own life if it meant his safety.

“Please.” Her voice broke… “Please.” Bellatrix looked at her with dark assessing eyes. Neville grew quiet.

“He’s my Grandson. Please don’t take him from me too. I will give everything to keep him safe. Just ask and it is yours.” Augusta shook. Despite the warmth of the room she shivered in cold and fear.

“Please…” it seemed the only thing she could say. Bella paused for a moment longer.

“Your son and his wife are dead… or will be soon.” Bella was not a compassionate woman it had been punished out of her as a child, but this night had awakened that strange feeling inside of her once more. The look on Augusta’s face made her heart ache.

“…And Neville?” the question hung in the air, a specter haunting them.

“He is safe, unharmed… and yours.” Bella couldn’t bring herself to remove Neville from her arms. He’d snuggled closer to her warmth as sleep overtook him, Bella couldn’t make herself give him up, afraid that the feeling would disappear without him, that she would return to the empty shell of herself she had been before this night, but this time she would known that she was hollow… a worse fate she could scarcely imagine. Augusta rose cautiously. Something was wrong here, she saw in Bellatrix LeStrange not the darkness of a Death Eater but a broken and confused young woman.

 “You…you…saved him?” Her voice was soft. Breaking into the night around them. It seemed to echo in the unlit corners of the room.

“I couldn’t let them hurt him.” Bella locked eyes with Augusta for a moment before you looked back at Neville.

“I’m so sorry, little one. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save your mum and dad. I’d give anything to take it all back. To take very word, every spell, every curse if it meant that I could spare you this pain.” Bella stroked a hand across his downy tuft of dark hair. Augusta looked on. She waited until Bella caught her eyes, she had so many things she wanted to say but Bella opened her mouth to speak first.

“I have no right to ask anything of you. I know that… but please, please keep him safe. He’s all that matters now. Tell him stories about his parents. Tell him that they were strong. That they loved each other and were with each other until the very end. Make him laugh, let him…” Bella felt tears well up in her eyes,  “ Let him run through the grass and play in the sun, unafraid.  Don’t tell him about me… tell him… tell him that he was loved… is loved.” Sobs racked her body, tears sliding down her pale cheeks, landing on Neville’s upturned face, like the rain the beat against the glass of the windows, her tears cleansing the night from his soul. Her arms were leaden and weak, trembling as she handed him to his Grandmother.

Bella felt lost, but the joy that this child had brought into her life stayed with her despite the separation. She stood and gazed at the two for a moment, leaning in and kissing Neville gently on the forehead. She turned toward the door ready to leave but Augusta’s voice stopped her.

“Why can’t he know that you saved him?” her voice was thick, as though she to fought tears.

“Because…” Bella wiped her cheeks and steeled herself, “he deserves better.” Her shoulders were tight with pain.

“What are you to do now?” Augusta didn’t move her arms from Neville though her own cheeks were damp.

“I have to say good-bye then I will be turning myself into the Ministry. I deserve no mercy… no pardons… no chance to run.” She moved through the barely illuminated doorway and down the hall before Augusta could stop her again, she was out in the raging storm before she stopped. The rain was fierce as it slammed into her skin, but she felt that the Earth was washing her clean. In that moment she knew that no matter what happened, she had done the right thing… that she had saved one life and for that she knew that even a hundred lifetimes in Azkaban would be worth it.

Bella let the rain soak her for a moment longer before she apparated away. The first stop was a small plain looking home on the edge of the town of Painswick. The laughter from the home called to her. Her sister, her sister and her family lay within this home. She needed to know before she let them take her, that her sister was happy and if there was still room in Madea’s heart for her. Her hands shook as she knocked on the door. The rain was light here, but Bella let it fall on her with a smile as she waited for the door to open. Ted Tonks opened the door and looked at her in horror.

The last time he’d seen her she had screamed and thrown hexes at him… but she spoke before he could draw his wand or yell.

“Please Ted… I just need a minuet. If you want me out after that you can call the Aurors and they can have me.” Ted seemed to consider her for a moment, but in the end he opened the door wide and let her in, he was  after all a Hufflepuff. Bella laughed to herself at the thought, it felt good like water on parched earth… or sun after a harsh winter.

“Who was it, hun?” Andromeda’s voice was just as she remembered it. Those cool tones that brought laughter into their utilitarian childhood.

“You would never believe me if I told you.” Ted’s voice was strained and wary, Bella was used to that reaction by now. She had imagined this moment so often in her head, but it had never gone like this. Before this night she had imagined a duel… Andromeda coming back to the family after disposing of her husband… but now she could see the glow of love that surrounded them and it warmed her. She wrapped it around her, building up her shields s when they brought her to the Dementors she would have good to cling to, the image of a laughing child flashed into her mind. Neville, she would never let the dementors have that memory.

“Alright. I’ll come see.” Andromeda’s voice grew closer. When she came around the corner, Bella felt a smile light up her face. Her sister carried a small child on her hip. Her hair wildly changing from color to color as she laughed. This must be her niece Nymphadora.

 Bella, had she been the same person she was only hours ago would have laughed at the shocked expression on Andromeda’s face and the fear that crept into her eyes, but this was a new Bella… a changed Bella. She moved swiftly toward her sister and wrapped her arms around both of them.  Her laughing niece and her sister, she pressed her face into Andromeda’s neck.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Medea, I’m so sorry.” She repeated it over and over again like a prayer. She felt Andromeda shift letting Nymphadora slid to the floor before she wrapped her arms around Bella’s shaking shoulders.

“Oh, Bella…” The hug went on and on… soothing and comforting both of them.

“Why don’t we have some tea?  We can all sit together and talk.” The voice came from the living room, where Ted had set up a simple tea set. Bellatrix pulled away from a moment before she reached out and place a hand on his.

“I’m sorry, Ted. You deserve better than the way I treated you.” Her voice was rusty from all the tears and emotions of the evening. She turned to Nymphandora would was half hidden behind her father’s legs.

“Hello, Lovey.  Let your Auntie Bella look at you.” She threw her arms wide and as the child ventured forth she closed them around her and drew the girl up to her hip, the same way she had seen Andromeda holding her not but moments ago.

“You are beautiful. You are just like your mum when she was little. Did you know that?” Bella didn’t feel the same bright joy she felt when she looked this child as she had with Neville, but instead a kind of peaceful hope.

“That’s what mummy always says. That I looks just like her.” Nymphadora’s smile was bright as she lisped around loose teeth. Ted reached out and plucked the girl from her arms.

“It’s time for bed, Nymphie. Give you mummy a kiss.” It was quick work saying good night to her mother before Ted hustled her from the room. Andromeda watched her through half lidded eyes for a moment before she spoke.

“What’s going on Bella? This isn’t like you…” Bella knew what Andromeda meant, but her heart was overfull with joy and sorrow and she let the events of the night spill from her mouth. She told Andromeda about the Longbottoms, about Voldemort’s death, about the blanket on the front porch, about Neville and his Grandmother… about feeling alive for the first time in years… she laid her soul and her sins before her sister and waited. She knew that she was asking a lot of Andromeda but her time was growing short and she still had one stop left to make before the night was over.

“I know that you don’t want to hear I’m sorry again, but I am… and I know that I’ve come back into your life for a brief moment barely long enough to shake things up, but I need to know that you’re happy. I need to know if there is the barest hint of a change that you could still love me.” Bella tried to keep herself from crying again. It seemed that the night had broken the mask she had worn for so long and in its absence she felt everything more strongly than she ever had before. Andromeda reached a hand out a lay it across hers.

“Of Course, Bella. You are my sister… I have always loved you. I’m happy. I’m happier than I have ever been before.” Andromeda’s face lit up with a smile and Bella knew it was true. She slid her hand from under Andromeda’s and placed it on her cheek. Bella’s calloused fingers slid across Andromeda’s high pale cheekbones.

“Know this, sister. I carry you with me. I carry your love with me.” Bella stood and moved toward the door, the clock in the hall ringing out the hour. Ten chimes followed her as she reached for the door handle. A small touch on her shoulder stopped her.

“Carry it were? Where are you going?” Andromeda’s voice was soft barely audible over the crackle of the fire and the echoing ring of the clock.

“All the way to the Dementors. All the way to Azkaban.” They embraced once more. Arms clutching one another as tight as they could, as if afraid that if they let go for one moment… if their arms loosened the other would disappear. Finally Bella pulled away. She smiled at Andromeda as she opened the door.

“You always were the best of us.” Her words lingered in the entry as she disappeared into the dark, the soft crack of apparition lost in the night.

Spinner’s End was just as she remembered it. Though it was only once and it was some time ago… it had always lingered on in her mind. It was still hours before dawn… but it felt as though years had passed in the span of minuets. It felt as though this night was never ending.

Bella knocked softly on the door. She felt the weariness of the night almost overcome her… but she knew she could sleep soon. That Azkaban had a cell with her name on it. She knocked again, this time louder and heard someone moving about inside.

Severus Snape opened the door and Bella was hit with the knowledge that he had failed.  Harry Potter might still be alive but his beloved Lily was dead. She felt for him, felt for him in the depths of her newly rediscovered heart.  It was compassion again, how strange that until this night she had pushed this feeling aside… afraid to let it take root in the murky wasteland of her soul…

“Offer me tea.” Bella spoke into the awkward silence that lay between them. Snape sneered by shifted to one side and allowed her to enter.

“Of course, let me get right on that.” His voice was laced with pain and sarcasm.  Once they were both inside, Bella turned to him and drew her wand. Holding it out to him handle first. It was an old tradition… the wand was pointed at her heart, if he felt her untrustworthy he could kill her now, but if he touched the wand and released it he acknowledged her as a guest in his home. Snape’s hand was slow to rise but when it landed on the handle she grasped it and held it in place.

“I, Bellatrix Druella LeStrange nee Black do swear on my life and magic that I will serve Severus Tobias Prince Snape as a spy until which time that he has found absolution and the Dark Lord is dead. No cost shall detour me, no pain turn me away. Even unto death I will do what must.” A bright flash of light filled the room. When it subsided Snape was looking at her in something akin to horror.

“What have you done you foolish girl?” Snape’s voice was harsh, his breathing ragged. Bella shook her head and dropped her wand, clasping his face between her hands.

“I know that you failed to save her. I can see it in your eyes. I know that you no longer serve him... and I know that you will need help to bring him down. I don’t know what I can do, but I will do what I must to ensure that he won’t have the chance to destroy any more families. In return I ask only one thing… look after them. Both Young Harry and Neville Longbottom. Their lives have been ripped apart by our foolish mistakes, they deserve all the help they can get.” Bella ran her hands through his thick hair, her fingers tangling in his raven locks.

“Why are you doing this?” Severus raised one of his hands, placing it carefully in the crook of her elbow. It was comforting, a reassuring touch.

“I found myself tonight. I found myself in a child’s nursery, gazing down at a child who deserved better than what was to come… I found myself so desperately in love with that child that I turned away from everything I held important… everything I believed in. I’m going to turn myself in. When you hear about what happened tonight… I want you to know that I never meant it to be this way.” Snape nodded and released her. They stepped away from each other. He showed her to the door, his gaze lingering on her as she walked away. It wasn’t until he returned to his living room and saw her wand lying on the floor that the tears came. Bellatrix wouldn’t walk down a street or enjoy the rain for another thirteen years. She would cling to the memory of Neville’s smiling face and Andromeda’s love until they were nothing more than faded blurry images… but they saved her from the darkness that threatened to consume all those who dwelled in Azkaban.

***

These two poor souls where not the only ones forced to confront their mistakes… as is often the case, some will carry their burden without displaying their pain for all to see and some… some bare their burden deep within them. Hiding their troubles so well that even they are unaware of them. Those who find redemption like our dear Bella can understand the agony of hiding those things away, but those like Lucius Malfoy who push them away… time is not kind to there type. There is a moment for facing each conflict and each thorn… but to press them away leaving them for the universe creates festering wounds that can steal away the precious moments of one’s life.

***

Abraxas Malfoy had been a heavy-handed disciplinarian… to his son, his wife, and his House Elves. He didn’t believe in weakness, he didn’t allow crying, and he detested failure. He was known among his peers as a harsh but loving father. At home he was closer to a great hulking bully. He ruled his family with an iron fist and saw nothing redeemable in his son.

Persephone Malfoy was absent at best. Her hazy blue eyes often seeing distant times and places, but never her son. She moved through Malfoy Manner like a ghost, her feet bare, and hair un-brushed… her mind wondering. She never left the mansion, never met with her peers or hosted dinner parties. As a child Lucius had assumed that his mother loved him though she never spoke to him or even looked at him. It wasn’t until he was much older that he understood. He was the constant reminder that she had been married away to a man she hated… the reason why she locked herself away in her mind.

There are some people who are cruel to those around them because they are evil, because their hearts are a vacuous space where no light or happiness could ever hope to thrive. There are those who are cruel because they believe that the situation, the moment, calls for it… and there are those poor souls who are cruel because they have never learned better.

Lucius was the latter. By the time he was allowed to have friends the only example he’d ever seen was that of his father. His father hitting the House Elves, striking him, pulling his un-responding mother into her bedroom and leaving hours later as her sobs echoed down the hall.  He could have changed… he could have grown into a better person but he was never given the right incentive… the right motivation to be different.

Narcissa Black was the first person to ever pierce the veil around him. She was the first to see him as something other than a Malfoy. It was no wonder that he loved her desperately, she represented all the good things in the world that he was terrified to strive for. She pushed him to be better, to be more… to achieve more than his father, to show the hateful bastard that he was worth his name.

Narcissa was followed by Severus Snape, a first-year who’d been in his house. Lucius a glorious fifth year and a prefect no less had taken the young man under his wing. It was a friendship, like his own with Narcissa, would come to define him.  Through the years that they went to school together the three of them became inseparable. Severus became the brother he’ d never had and Narcissa became the love of his life. He felt for a time that nothing could touch them... nothing could pull them apart. For a time the halls of Hogwarts sheltered them, but such things come to an end, always before we are ready for them to be over.

When Lucius had finished school and moved out into the world, working toward his mastery in potions he met the Dark Lord. His father pushed and pushed and for the first time in his life, Abraxas was proud of his son… proud that his heir was to serve the greatest Dark Lord in history. Lucius would think back years later, after the end of the first war… and he would let his mind travel down an unmarked trail in his mind… the future that could have been. Where Narcissa, Severus, and himself ran away, where they lived on a beach somewhere and worried about nothing but getting sand in the house and picking potion ingredients under the full moon.

Lucius always stopped himself before he got so far down that path that he turned into his mother, he knew better than most the danger of letting what could have been cloud his vision of what was. This was the path he’d chosen, the path laid before him and he would follow through until he had found his way or it had run its course.

When Narcissa graduated just two years later he asked her to marry him. It was the easiest thing he’d ever done. He’d never imagined that his decisions would so adversely affect those around him. He never imagined that Narcissa would have to follow the Dark Lord as well, and that Severus, his brother in all but blood would join as well. Someone where in the dark place of his heart, where he hid his secret ambitions and his hate for his father, there in that place he felt an unfathomable pain. His own Brother, who he had sought to protect all these years… the images of Severus writhing in pain under the Cruciatus would haunt his nightmares for years to come, but those images were not alone.

When the prophecy reached the Dark Lord’s ears, he demanded that all of his followers report the moment any of them or their spouses become pregnant. Lucius understood, that a betrayal from within… that was the one thing Voldemort was ill prepared for.

            He came home that night to tell his wife about the prophecy and the Dark Lord’s orders… but the tears on her face as he spoke stopped him. A small piece of parchment slipped from her fingers as she ran from the room. He bent down and lifted it with careful fingers. His eyes grew misty as they read the words scratched onto it.

            ‘Lady Malfoy,

We were pleased to learn that your recent visit to our facilities was a pleasant one. We would like to recommend continuing care here as all of our prenatal and delivery Medi-witches and Healers are well trained yearly in the most up-to-date methods. Should you choose to continue receiving care through our facility please reply with an owl at your convenience and we will be happy to provide you with a private Healer and set-up a time in July for your delivery.

            Blessings on you and yours,

                        Calligary Hunterson

            Director of St. Mungos Pre-Natal and Delivery ward.

Lucius was sure that without his excellent self-control he would have thrown up right then and there. He’d wanted a child for so long, an heir, a child he could raise to be self confident and proud… a child were in he could correct all the wrongs of his own up brining… but a child born in July… oh Merlin… the Dark Lord would kill it. Strike it down before it even drew it’s first breath, and his wife… his lovely wife… his precious Narcissa she would die as well, if not by the Dark Lord’s hands then she would surely pass of heartbreak.

He knew unerringly that his wife would be sitting in the far back corner of their gardens, on the small stone bench that faced the mansion, where all the midnight roses bloomed and filled the air with their pungent restful fragrance. It was where she went to think. Lucius found her there with her head in her hands and sobs wracking her body. Crystalline tears rolled down her arms, glistening in the pale glow of the moon.

            “We won’t tell him.” Lucius knelt before her as he spoke, his hands drifted around her, pulling her to him in an uncomfortable hug. His face was pressed against her midsection… pressed against his unborn child.

            “I won’t let him have you, little one. I’ll swear I will protect you with everything I have… everything I am.” A soft golden light surrounded them, but neither Narcissa nor Lucius noticed. She placed her hands on his face drawing his chin upward until they made eye contact.

            “I love you, Lucius. We will raise our child better than either of us were raised. We’ll love him. We’ll teach him compassion and hope. We’ll let him chose what he wants to be… how he wants to live and support him no matter what.” She leaned in and kissed him on the forehead.

            “A son… my heir… our son.” Lucius leaned upward and placed a soft kiss of her damp cheek. There were times for stoic pure blood masks and this was not one of them. They sat together, their arms wrapped around each other, hands intertwined with one another’s and resting over the place where their son slowly grew. Neither spoke a word…

            There in the velvet intimacy of the night, with the shadow of the mansion and the light of the moon following over them… the Malfoy’s defied the Dark Lord of the first time.

            It would of course take them many months… and two more defiant moments to realize what they had done. No one truly thinks about the consequences of their actions as the darkness threatens to overwhelm them and their loved ones… and Lucius truly did love his wife and loved his unborn son more and more each day. He looked at them and his heart felt ready to burst from his chest with joy. They were the only things that he had ever truly done right in his life.

            So… that June night when Narcissa went into labor he felt a great relief roll over him and mix with the ever-growing love that lived inside of him. His beautiful son, so small and pale, born a month early, just in time to save his own life from the wrath of the Dark Lord, Lucius wrapped his arms around both mother and child and for the first time since his own childhood, he cried.

Each life is a single thread in a tapestry. A single ripple in a still pond. For the few moments that we breathe, for the few moments that we frolic in the sun or cry in the rain the whole picture is withheld from us.

James and Lilly Potter never knew that their son, their precious child would save the wizarding world some day. They never knew that their deaths would end two wars. They simply loved their son and did what any true parent would do. They laid down their lives for the chance that he might live and live well.

Sybill Trelawney never knew as she sipped butter beer and half drunkenly muttered out a prophecy that she would doom that same small child to a life of pain and a life so bleak it seemed at times barely worth rising in the morning. She never knew that her words would bring a proud man to his knees, destroy a Dark Lord, save the soul of one lost woman, or change the heart of a man who had long denied it’s existence.

Severus Snape never imagined that those same few words would bring his world crashing down. He wouldn’t see until years later that Lily’s death… that her husbands death had saved his own life. They may have raised their wands and laid down their lives for Harry, but their sacrifice had saved him as well.

Bella would dream for years about finding Young Neville again, about holding him in her arms and crooning softly to him as they walked together through the endless fields of swaying grass around Longbottom Manor. It was those thoughts that kept her sane… and it would be those thoughts that dictated her life.

Lucius and Narcissa refused to set their son down for days after that Halloween night. So afraid of what could have been. Their brush with death had changed their lives, shattering their carefully constructed world and leaving nothing but loveable broken pieces.

Ripples, Dear reader… ripples of never ending strength that crashed on to these poor souls with the power of fate. All of these ripple flowing outward from one small child… who was laid on the doorstep of a small house in Little Whinging. Whose soft cries of pain and confusion went unnoticed until the morning… when he was brought in with the morning paper. This, Gentle friends is his story.