All was well.
At least for some of society, it was; the Dark Lord was set to win the war within the next year or two, three at the most, if predictions were anything to go by. For some, this news was horrible, and it cast a dark, looming shadow over their lives — for others, still, it brought joy and longing. The Malfoys were such people. They relished in this news. It was, after all, all they'd worked so hard for. Lucius was up day and night, influencing the Ministry and doing the Dark Lord's bidding. Abraxas, too, played his role in the Ministry. Narcissa worked hard, keeping her son happy, which was quite a feat; he had just turned three months old and had a good set of lungs on him. He wasn't afraid to use them, either, and though they were sleep deprived and Abraxas warned them Draco would become immensely spoiled if they kept tending to his every whim, Narcissa and Lucius wouldn't have him any other way. Often, all the boy needed was some love and attention, so this was easily given. Other times...
It was dark out. It was at least two in the morning — Lucius had long given up on checking the time, as it would just make his desperation greater. He'd promised his wife to take the night to look after Draco so she could get some much-needed sleep in, but he already regretted that now. Each second felt like a lifetime, his patience wearing thin, stretched to the limit. He almost wished for the Mark to burn just so he had an excuse to put down the child. He had been walking through the gardens with him for hours, and he was still screaming and showing no sign of slowing down. He was simply inconsolable. Nothing worked. He not even wanted to eat (much to Lucius' frustration, as that was his only other way out of this situation).
At least the weather wasn't too bad. He already dreaded doing this again in winter.
Lucius carried young Draco in his arms, pacing up and down the gardens for another hour. The fresh air might finally calm him, or so Lucius hoped. After what felt like a century, Lucius sank into the rocking chair and gently rocked back and forth. Then, when Draco finally quieted, he lay him in his cot and used his wand to show him fun images — he showed no interest in them, and only screamed harder when Lucius turned his back to get just a second of rest for himself. He was desperate. It was driving him mad. He finally did check his watch. Four o'clock. If he wanted to sleep at all before he was required at the Ministry...
He carried his son out of the nursery again and brought him to the pantry down the hall. Balancing his son, his wand, and the correct vial, he made his way to the guest bedroom they had. He lay down his still sobbing son and climbed into the double bed with him.
It was now or never. He dried away the boy's tears and got him to be a little quieter for a few seconds — long enough for him to open the vial and hold it to his tiny lips. He tilted his head a little and tried to force it down his throat...
The deep purple liquid got everywhere. It coloured Draco's skin, it drenched the bedsheets, it even got into his hair. But by some miracle, he swallowed some, and it calmed him down almost instantly.
Lucius watched the rise and fall of his tiny chest for some time, waiting to be sure Draco had fallen asleep before he downed the remainder of the potion himself.
All was well.
And all remained well. At least for some of society, it did; the Dark Lord had fallen, defeated by a child Draco's age, defeated by a baby — the strength this child had to possess was immense, and the Malfoys were not the only ones holding out for a new “Dark Lord”. Loyalties were easily forgotten in the game of power.
They got away unscathed. Others were less lucky.
Narcissa had it rough, going to bed in her warm manor when her sister slept surrounded by Dementors. Lucius noticed this but did not know what to do about it — he had no influence over who would or would not be sent to Azkaban. He had used all he could do to keep himself out. He could not push his luck any further.
But despite this, they were happy enough together. Draco grew up well and met his milestones. He went to bed when he needed to and slept through the night. Well, most nights. Not this one.
Draco was having a nightmare.
He was crying and screaming hysterically as the terror from his dream stayed with him. He snuggled up with his stuffed dragon and tried to calm down, but he was frightened of the dark, and light was nowhere to be found. The room was scary now the blue walls were black and the colour was drained from his toys.
The soft howling of the wind reminded him of werewolves and had him shaking in fear. He couldn't take it any more and climbed out of bed, padding out of the door and into the cold hallway. He stumbled in the dark, tears still streaming down his face as he reached the master bedroom.
Both Lucius and Narcissa were fast asleep when Draco entered the room. They therefore knew none of his distress until Lucius awoke to it – there was a soft tug on his arm, then a harsher tug on his hair, followed by a muffled sob.
He opened his eyes and saw his son, in tears, standing before his bed. Something was wrong. Draco was crying, so something was wrong. He looked across the bed to Narcissa. She was still asleep.
“What's the matter?” he asked.
“Ba-bad werewolf in — in — in — in my bed!”
Panic set in first and sent him to his feet, but calmness took its place when he looked outside and saw the crescent Moon. Whatever it was that upset Draco, it wasn't a werewolf, and that was one massive relief.
He didn't say as much, though. He simply grabbed his wand from his nightstand and lifted Draco up in the air. "Shall we go fight the werewolf?" he whispered in the boy's ear.
Draco nodded and clung to Lucius as they made their way to his bedroom. Lucius lit his wand and pushed open the door to reveal — nothing. Just as he'd expected. There were no monsters, no werewolves... There was nothing to be afraid of.
Had he been Abraxas, then that had been the end of it. He'd have sent the shaking Draco to bed, even if it meant the boy had to cry himself to sleep. He remembered very well how he'd felt after a nightmare when he had been young, and he knew how it felt to be on his own through it. He did not want to be that kind of father.
So he said, “The werewolf must've run away when it heard us coming. Do you see it anywhere?”
Draco lifted up his head to look around the room in his father's wandlight. He shook his head.
Lucius took him on a tour around the room, making sure to let him inspect every nook until his tears dried and his smile returned. “You're the best, Daddy!”
“You'll be just as great as Daddy one day.”
“I'll be the greatestest!”
“You will be,” Lucius agreed, putting Draco down on his bed. “You'll be the greatest if you sleep well and work hard. If you do that, you can do anything.”
Draco's face fell, and he fidgeted with his hands. “I don't wanna sleep...”
Lucius sighed and sat down on the bed beside him. “Is it the werewolf you're afraid of? Do you think it's going to come back and eat you?”
Draco nodded. “Will you stay here with me?”
“I'll stay here until you're asleep—”
“No, no! Longer, please!”
“All right, all right, I'll stay all night. What do you say about that? I'll keep the nasty monsters at bay.”
A small smile formed on Draco's lips as he nodded again. He crawled under the covers and closed his eyes, and Lucius stared out of the window. The wind howled against the dark blue sky. His eyelids felt heavy, and morning was only a few hours away, but he couldn't let himself rest just yet; he did not want to be known as the father who left.
He turned his attention back to Draco, who stared at him with big grey eyes that had been a stunning blue not so long ago, when the world had a scarier place and real monsters had walked the earth. One with red eyes and a skin so white it did not look human any more. A monster he had served.
He leaned forwards and planted a kiss on Draco's nose, causing him to giggle. “Close your eyes, the morning won't wait forever,” he said, hoping they both would get some rest before dawn.
Draco closed his eyes in obedience and for a moment it seemed he would really fall asleep; his breathing turned rhythmic and slow, and he turned in his bed to find a more comfortable position — then he sat upright, with wide eyes that clearly spelled fear.
“I'm here, Daddy's here,” Lucius said, stroking his son's blond hair in an attempt to soothe him. “It's all right. You can go back to sleep now. I'm here to keep you safe...”
And Draco nestled himself against him and closed his eyes again, and Lucius kept an arm around him protectively. And it went on like this. The slightest noise, even the rustling of the trees, startled him and sent him upright, wide-eyed and alert. The longer it lasted, the more he woke up, the greater his distress.
After half an hour of this back-and-forth, Draco was crying again, and nothing Lucius said or did could calm him. He was, therefore, forced to take drastic measures.
“Come here,” he whispered, lifting his son out of bed and going for the door. “I know something that'll help you sleep, all right?”
He took him down to the pantry and got out a clear vial holding a deep purple potion. It was the last of the stock. He needed it so often these days, and Narcissa... she did not think it was wise to take them as often, but he still kept one on hand for her at all times. He'd have to ask Severus if he could brew them some more.
He took Draco to the kitchen and had him sit down on one of the chairs. He poured the potion into a cup, down to the last drip, and handed it to his son with a stern, “Not a word to Mummy.”
Draco drank it all.
He watched as his young son finally drifted off to sleep, a gnawing guilt creeping in. It was the easiest solution — but easy wasn't always right.
For now, all was well.
But if all would remain well... that was the question, wasn't it? Draco was ageing fast and would soon be of school-age, and that meant life had never been as hectic for the Malfoys as it was now, with all that still needed to be bought and arranged. The young boy was to be educated at Durmstrang, as there truly was no finer institute of magic anywhere, not for Draco, at least: Lucius was somewhat close to Igor, the school taught the Dark Arts rather than simple defence against it, and, most importantly, it did not accept “Mudbloods” into the school.
The latter was a fact that Draco was all too keen on repeating to anyone he saw (so, Vincent and Gregory). He'd be educated with only the right sort of wizard, wasn't that great? He'd tried persuading his friends to persuade their parents to let them study at Durmstrang as well, but it failed spectacularly — neither wanted to go further from home than strictly necessary.
Thus started Draco's uncertainty. From that moment on, he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad would happen to him if he went away. He couldn't shake the thought that this would be the end of his happy life. It plagued him day and night and actually stopped him from sleeping at all. He couldn't help it. His mind simply kept thinking of all the things that could go wrong.
On one such night, Draco saw the clock turn midnight, and he saw it turn one, and then two o'clock, and three... and he couldn't take it any more. Durmstrang was all the way over in northern Europe, on the mainland and not in Britain, miles and miles and miles away, and his Mum and Dad would be nowhere near him. He would be speaking a language he still didn't know despite the lessons he'd had. He would be learning and living amidst students his own age he had never even seen before. He would be without his best friends, and he wasn't sure if that was the worst, but it certainly was a horrible thought.
So he tumbled out into the cold hallway and made his way to the bathroom. He stumbled towards the sink and drank some water out of his favourite cup. It had been a gift from his grandmother before she passed.
Tears ran down his face as he continued to sip from the cup. He'd already lost his Grandma. What if he lost more people? His parents? And what if he lost them whilst stranded all the way in — whatever country Durmstrang was in. Even that he did not know. It was hopeless.
He sank to the floor, silently crying to himself, whilst Lucius stirred from his sleep across the hall in a completely unrelated case. He'd simply had a bit too much to drink last night, and he was paying for it now. That happened more often these days. He put it down to the stress of sending Draco so far away.
He made his way over to the bathroom without even properly waking up. He only snapped awake when he found the door ajar, and though it was dark, he could easily make out the shape of his son sitting on the cold floor, clutching a cup with both hands.
There was nothing more sobering to a father than that.
“Are you all right? You're not ill, are you? Hurt? Injured?”
He'd thrown himself to the floor beside him and looked him over as quickly as he could but found nothing except for a lot of tears. He pulled Draco close, resting his own head on the bathtub as he did so, and closing his eyes to keep his own nausea at bay. His boy needed him.
He held Draco until his tears had all dried up, and he could no longer hear his sharp intakes of breath to calm down.
“Now why don't you tell me what's wrong?” Lucius prompted, pulling away from the embrace to look him in the eye.
“Can't sleep.”
Lucius stroked his hair. “Why not?”
Draco shrugged and looked away, then seemed to change his mind. “I don't want to go to school. It's — it's so far away, and it's scary, and — and they don't even speak the same language!”
“You'll learn the language quickly enough. Have you been paying attention to the lessons I arranged? Or, if you want, we could practise together instead. Or I could get Igor over, and he can help you.”
“That's not what I want... I want to stay at home with you and Mum. I don't want to leave!” Tears sprang hack to his eyes, and he buried his face into Lucius' nightshirt to hide them.
“I thought you were excited about going,” Lucius mumbled, rubbing soft circles on his son's back. “Is this why you're having trouble sleeping?”
He could feel his head moving up and down. The soft hum only confirmed it.
He sighed. “How about you sleep with us tonight? How about that? Just the three of us.”
Draco pulled away slightly. “Together?”
“Together,” Lucius affirmed, wiping away some of his tears.
He steered him away from the bathroom and towards the master bedroom, where Narcissa still lay sound asleep. He tiptoes around the bed to his side, motioning for Draco to follow him. Draco did, but he stopped at the nightstand and looked at the flask atop it.
“What's that?” Draco whispered.
Lucius sat down on the bed and patted the space next to him. “It's a potion for dreamless sleep.”
“What does it do?”
“You know how you said you couldn't sleep? It helps with that. It helps you sleep, and it helps you not have any bad dreams.”
Draco seemed to consider this for a moment. “Why do you have it?”
“Because Daddy has trouble sleeping as well sometimes.”
Draco looked at him in disbelief, his child-brains trying desperately to process this piece of information. Lucius had to suppress a smile. It was likely the first time Draco ever thought about Lucius as being able to experience any of the bad things he experienced — little did he know Lucius had to put himself asleep with it every night, and not just some. It had become an impossible task.
“How does it taste?”
Draco was eyeing the potion with a greed Lucius could place all too well, and therefore, he handed the flask to his son. “Try it.”
Draco looked at the purple liquid swirling around inside, then took a sip, and another — the potion worked his magic and it wasn't long before he threatened to drop the flask in his fit of extreme drowsiness. Lucius quickly took it from him and put it back on the table before tucking Draco in beside Narcissa. The boy was already sound asleep.
Draco slept late into the morning, giving Lucius enough time to discuss the matter of education with his wife. At breakfast with Draco she proceeded to proclaim loudly that she could not bear the thought of sending her boy so far away, and how that meant there simply was no other option but to send him to Hogwarts instead.
Draco smiled, unable to hide his joy.
Yes, all was well.
Until it wasn't. Because Hogwarts was closer than Durmstrang, but it was still far away, and the Malfoys had never been separated before — and certainly not for such long periods at a time. Draco was plagued by homesickness, and aside from frequent letters are care packages, there was nothing Narcissa and Lucius could do.
Even the holidays did not make up for it. Nothing did. They felt shattered. To separate the Malfoys was to pull apart one living being and to force its parts to live without each other. It was cruel. Criminal, even. But although they discussed home education, it never was a true option — Hogwarts provided Draco with far more than they could ever offer the boy.
And it did settle into a rhythm. They did find a way around it. It was never ideal, no...
But all was well enough.
Even that came to an end, though, with Lucius' Mark burning black for the first time in... too long, yet also, not long enough. And Draco awoke from nightmare after nightmare, bathing in cold sweat in his dormitory at Hogwarts. Cedric Diggory's dead body haunted him in his dreams, but he told no one. No one comforted him, no one helped him go back to sleep. There were no potions nor parents at Hogwarts — and he needed both.
Even at home, Draco's nightmares became more frequent. Hhis façade wouldn't hold for long. But he grew more distant from his parents; they spent more time working on maintaining good standing with the Dark Lord than caring for their son.
The Malfoys lost each other.
All was not well.
Draco was alone, at school, with an impossible task ahead of him. Lucius was alone in Azkaban, slipping away from himself. Narcissa was alone, at home, desperate to do something to fix things... but she knew nothing could, because the Dark Lord's punishments were cruel. They tore down families, and they tore down the Malfoys. They were not strong enough.
There was no Dreamless Sleep Potion for any of them, but it wouldn't have worked regardless, because the nightmare they wanted to get rid of was reality.
Eventually, they shifted their focus elsewhere just to cope. Narcissa played the perfect host; Lucius had the comfort of the Dark Lord not being in Azkaban with him.
Draco found solace in a see-through girl, a shadow of the past, a ghost that understood him like no other. She talked him through the nights, she helped him at his worst, when even sleep evaded him and there was nothing that brought him rest any more.
But all was not well.
Lucius was in Azkaban losing his hope, losing his love, losing his life. He felt more and more like a failure each day he was stuck on the island instead of out and about, able to keep his son safe, able to keep his wife safe. He was the head of the family. He was a Malfoy, and he was nothing.
Narcissa was at home, sick with worry, sick with fear, sick with a building, burning hatred for the one who had caused this all to happen. Not her husband. Not even her sister. Lord Voldemort.
Draco was still at Hogwarts. His sleepless nights were spent coming up with a plan. He was numb. He wished for tears to flow from his eyes, he wished for emotion, he wished for anything that could show him he was still alive — but it didn't come, so he focused on repairing the Vanishing Cabinet and ignored the bags around his eyes.
All was not well.
Yet he could feel. The earth beneath his feet burnt, and he was the one who set it on fire. The blue sky darkened and turned grey from the smoke. The adrenaline rushing through his body kept him going — he was alive. He survived. He wasn't dead. Draco felt dead, but he wasn't.
Dumbledore was. Dumbledore wasn't alive. Dumbledore didn't survive. Dumbledore, like so many others, was dead. And he should have cheered and cried in happiness, but he didn't.
Because all was not well.
The Dark Lord didn't sleep. Draco didn't sleep. Narcissa didn't sleep. Lucius didn't sleep. None slept, yet the house was silent.
They all willed themselves asleep, buried deep into their covers, but it wouldn't work. Willpower wasn't enough. Even when it was, and they briefly caught their sleep, nightmares would put an end to it.
Because even though they lived, even though they survived another day, even though they were not yet dead — it couldn't last long. The Dark Lord was a scary man, and they were on his to-kill list. Something had to change, and fast.
Perhaps then all would be well again.
And change, it did. Eventually. After many, many hard months, the Dark Lord was gone. Again. For good, this time.
But the Malfoys stayed the same. Broken. Alone. They couldn't remember the last time they had properly slept. They couldn't remember the last time they had smiled. They couldn't remember the last time they had felt anything but fear.
Draco sat in his bedroom at night, not sleeping — never sleeping, because his sleep had been stolen from him a long time ago — but he just sat and he stared at his lit wand, and that was all he did. That was all he could do. The colours in his bedroom no longer held any meaning. The sounds he heard blurred in the background. He barely existed.
Narcissa was in the sitting room with four bottles of Ogden's Old, but she had long since passed out.
But Lucius was up late, too, because the sleep wouldn't come. And went sleep didn't come, he went for the pantry. Or, he used to. Lately, he hadn't had a pantry to go to. He hadn't had a house that was his own. And in terms of potions... there wasn't much left, and with Severus dead, there was no knowing if or when they could acquire more.
But this, today — tonight — was just too unbearable not to drown out with a good night's sleep.
When he made for the master bedroom again, his eye fell on Draco's door. It was obviously light inside, so after brief hesitation, Lucius knocked.
“Enter.”
Draco's voice was far too mature, but he shoved that thought aside as quickly as it had come. He opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind him. He blinked against the bright light.
When his eyes adjusted and found the source of it, he took a step back.
The boy sitting on the bed was not the same boy he had comforted so many times at night, when times had been simpler and werewolves or school trouble had been all there was to worry about. There were no tears on his pained face — he had lived through too much for there to be any. Draco didn't even look at him. He stared last him, at the wall, as if Lucius was invisible. There was no trace of emotion on his face, no glint in his eyes. He was empty.
He knew that feeling all too well.
Lucius approached him and sat down next to him, and still he sat unmoving. He put an arm around his stiff, thinned body and brushed his hand through his greasy hair. He pulled him closer, laying Draco's head down to rest on his shoulder. He listened to the sound of his breathing, which grew increasingly ragged the longer they sat there. He rubbed circles on his back in an attempt to comfort him because he had no words to do so. He could not promise him that this was all, that it would be fine, that it'd work out. He could not comfort his son, his child, his baby. He couldn't chase his demons away.
This was only the beginning, after all. They had lost.
But he could offer him the last of the only thing that could bring him any rest at all. He pulled the half-empty flask from the pocket of his robes and pressed it into Draco's hands.
Draco recognised it instantly. He drank the precious purple liquid down to the last drop. It was the last of their stock, but Lucius said nothing — he had already taken too much.
Draco fell asleep almost instantly, the potion only adding to the exhaustion he must have already felt. Lucius lay his head down on the pillow beside him and watched the steady rise and fall of his chest as the air found its way to his lungs and back out again. He was reminded so suddenly of when Draco had been but a baby — he had to force himself to look away, for it was too much to think of such simple times.
He locked eyes with Narcissa.
She had woken up and somehow found her way upstairs to Draco's room. Now she stood in the doorway, unsure of what to do, especially now she had been seen — Lucius knew that feeling all too well. He had been just the same moments ago, staring at her body sprawled out on the sofa in the sitting room. Her once immaculate hair now hung loose, wild, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. She looked worse every day, but to Lucius, she was everything. He needed her to know that, but his throat was too tight to speak, to say that yes, she still belonged with him. She still belonged with Draco. They still belonged together, even though there had been too many nights of separation for it to still come naturally.
He beckoned her closer with his hand.
Narcissa moved slowly. She lowered herself onto the bed, next to Draco, next to Lucius. For a moment, he was certain she wanted to say something... Perhaps he wanted to say something.
Lucius' hand found hers, the best substitute for words he had, and they linked fingers. Hers were bony, and her touch was light. Fragile. She rested her head against his shoulder and slid her arm gently around him, reaching for their son. Lucius, too, had grown thin. He was but a shell of his former self. She could easily get to Draco. Right now, it was a blessing.
The three of them lay still, breathing in unison, and Lucius felt something creep up on him he hadn't felt in years — peace. The aftermath of the storm still raged outside, the world was still broken, but here, in this bedroom, for this moment...
All was well.