Draco Malfoy is not allowed to do a lot of things. He is not allowed to put his elbows on the dining table. He is not allowed in the tapestry room. He is not allowed to wear evening robes before five pm. He is not allowed in the tapestry room. He is not allowed to call muggleborns “mudblood” in front of professors. He is not allowed in the tapestry room.
He has tried, obviously. He’s tried every method possible since he was five years old and his father first sat him down and warned him that he must never ever set foot in that room no matter what, do you understand me Draco? But Draco Malfoy is not a coward, and so he has tried a hundred thousand times in as many ways to get into the tapestry room. Stealing his mother’s wand. Commanding a house elf. Setting fire to the stable as a distraction. But every time, without fail, as soon as he creaked open the door, his father would be looming behind him to grab him by the ear and pull him back out. Draco has only ever gotten a glimpse into the tapestry room. The ornate weaved portraits of their ancestors. The beautiful hand-crafted murals of the Manor’s scenery. The awe-inspiring Malfoy family tree, branching and spiralling out into hundreds of little portraits.
Draco isn’t sure why he wants to see it so badly, but he just has to. He’s seen their family tree in other forms of course - sketched out by his father, or in old texts about the Sacred Twenty-Eight. But never the real thing, with magic looped into each thread and rough, charred fabric in place of those who have been disinherited. He dreams of it every night when he’s at home, as if it’s calling to him from the other side of the Manor. Tonight, like every other night, he lies awake, thinking of it. His mother is away at one of her endless social events and likely won’t stumble back into the floo until well into the night. His father is… well. Draco doesn’t especially want to know what his father is doing tonight, but he can guess. This summer, the Manor has been host to a number of unsavoury guests - all ex-Death Eaters from the war that has narrowly avoided an Azkaban sentence. They always gathered in his father’s office and talked in hushed whispers with dark looks in their eyes. Planning.
So yes, Draco would like to avoid thinking about the nefarious things his father is probably out doing tonight, but regardless, it means he will also be home late.
Which makes Draco, for the first time in a long, long while, home alone. He is practically vibrating in his bed as he lies, still, with his breath held, waiting to hear the pitter-patter of a single house elf. He is met with silence. So he slowly slips himself out of bed and scurries down the hallway to the tapestry room, heart pounding. He stands outside the door for at least ten minutes just staring, awed, at the room. Then he grabs the handle with a shaky hand, turns it, and steps inside.
It’s more magnificent than he could have ever imagined. Rows and rows of artwork displayed on each wall, or hanging from the ceiling, or even just floating in midair. An ornate persian rug covers the floor, from the door where Draco stands all the way to the back wall. And hanging nobly on the back wall, practically glowing with magic, is the family tree. Draco shuffles towards it slowly, admiring every detail. The edges are trimmed with golden thread, in beautiful complex loops that spiral the whole way around. It stretches from the floor all the way to the ceiling, with thousands of names in tiny, perfect cursive scattered all over it. As Draco comes close, he can almost feel the tingle of the magic radiating off of it. He lifts a hand, just barely ghosting it along the fabric, and inhales sharply. It’s everything he ever dreamed of. It’s… astounding. His eyes catch on a name low down on the tapestry - Lucius Abraxas Malfoy, 1954 - present and he runs a finger across it lightly. He trails his hand downwards, past the connecting Narcissa Druella Malfoy (née Black), 1955 - present down to his name. His eyes shine as he soaks it in.
Draco Lucius Malfoy, 1980 - 1987 ✝
Wait - what?
Draco stares again. The words stay the same. He presses his hand down harder, rubbing at the threads, but they don’t budge. Breath quickening, he whips his head around to face the door because clearly his father has caught him out and is playing some sort of cruel trick - but the doorframe is just as empty as it was before. He is alone.
Draco turns hesitantly back to the tapestry, and glances to the right of where his hand is still rested. There is another name.
Silas Ellsworth, 1980 - present ⋊
Draco stands there for at least fifteen minutes. By the time he is able to tear his gaze away from the name, his eyes are blurry and aching and his hands are trembling. He takes one slow step back, then another. And then he spins around and sprints out of the room. He doesn’t stop until he reaches his bedroom and falls to his knees, gasping for breath. His heart is pounding again, his eyes unfocused, darting around the room. He presses a clammy hand to his head in an attempt to slow down his thoughts.
He’s Draco.
He is Draco Malfoy.
He is.
“Master Draco?”
Draco leaps backwards from where he is kneeling and lands painfully on his backside. He stares at the house elf - Mipsy - in front of him, who stares back, eyes just as wide.
“Is Master Draco being … alright? Mispy is hearing lots of running and banging from the kitchens.” Her voice is nervous and squeaky, and Draco watches the elf twist the edges of the pillowcase she wears between small fingers. When he doesn’t reply, she continues on.
“Does Master Draco be needing anything?”
He runs a hand through his hair shakily. It’s disgustingly damp from sweat. “Uh, a glass of water. Just bring it here - and a calming drought.”
Mipsy nods furiously and disappears with a snap. And Draco is left alone in the hallway again.
When she appears again a few moments later, with a tall glass and a vial of light blue liquid in hand, he has shuffled himself back so that he can slump against the wall. Mipsy stares at him for a moment and then cautiously hands over the vial.
Draco tilts his head back and downs it in a second, not even grimacing at the bitter tang, and then takes the water. He sips at this one slowly, pretending that he can’t hear the rattling of the ice as his hands shake furiously. As Mispy raises a hand to snap herself away again, Draco finds himself calling out for her.
“Wait,” he says, furrowing his brow.
Mipsy pauses. “Does Master Draco be needing anything else?”
He opens his mouth, and then shuts it again when he realises that no, he doesn’t actually need anything else. But he cannot bear to be left alone in the dark, silent hallway again.
“Sit,” he commands instead, pointing to the ground beside him.
Mipsy’s eyes get even wider, and her gaze darts back and forth between Draco and where he is pointing.
“...Sit?” she repeats cautiously.
Draco doesn’t say anything else, but just continues to gesture to the ground until Mipsy eventually teeters forward and kneels down at the wall near him.
They sit in silence for a few moments, with just the sound of clinking ice and Draco’s shaky breathing. Mipsy doesn’t seem to breathe at all, sitting perfectly still and glancing at Draco with nervous eyes.
“How long have you been working here?” Draco blurts out after a few minutes.
Mipsy seems to perk up a little at being asked something, and gives Draco a big nod. “Oh, Mipsy is being working for almost her whole life for the Malfoys! Since before Missus Narcissa is even having baby Master Draco!”
Draco whips his head back around. “Before I was born?”
“Oh yes, Mipsy is being very good at remembering. The other elves are always asking questions for Mipsy,” she says proudly. “Mipsy was only very young when Master Draco was born, but she is remembering it well.”
“What about when I was young,” he says shakily, “was I… did anything happen?”
“Lots of things were happening. Master Draco was happening a lot of trouble when he was young - Mispy remembers that too.”
She gives him a crooked smile - and then seems to remember who she’s speaking to, and the smile drops along with her head. She stares nervously at the floor, fingers creeping back up to fiddle with her makeshift dress.
“No, I mean -” Draco pauses, frowning. “What about when I was… seven? Did anything happen then? Anything big?”
Mipsy gasps. “Oh, yes, yes yes! Mipsy is definitely remembering when Master Draco was seven! Young Master Draco is having a very bad accident!” She looks at him with sincere, scared eyes. “Mipsy remembers it because even Master Lucius was frightened. Master Draco was being very ill and having to stay in bed all day. And then, when he was better, Master Draco was not very happy at all. Mipsy has never seen Master Draco so sad than when he was getting better. He was crying almost every day. He did not even want to be talking to Master Lucius!”
Mipsy glances around them and leans in towards him to utter softly - “Mipsy was hearing from some of the other elves that they was thinking that Master Draco was being poisoned.”
Draco says nothing for a moment, and then a strained “Thank you, Mipsy. That was very helpful. You… you can go now.”
Mipsy beams at him and stand up to bow. “Oh thank you Master Draco, Mipsy is having a lot of fun talking! Mipsy would love to be telling Master Draco stories again sometime.”
And before Draco can say anything else, she is gone.
He takes a breath, stands up, and walks back down the corridor to the tapestry room. He pauses at his father’s office, and then slips inside quickly to steal a quill and a piece of parchment from his desk. When he creeps back into the tapestry room, he beelines towards the family tree and examines the name carefully.
He’s seen a lot of runic symbols before, but this weird… sideways hourglass thing (?) is completely new to him. He notes it down carefully on the parchment, and after a moment of hesitation, he copies down the name as well. He stares down at it until the page blurs. Silas.
The name loops around in his head as he lays in bed later that night. It sounds familiar, and he mouths it wordlessly as he stares at his ceiling. And then, heart racing, he whispers it a single time into the darkness of his room - breathlessly, almost silently.
“Silas.”