THOSE IN GLASS HOUSES
I was young when I realised I didn't want to become a death eater.
Perhaps, only six years old.
Up until that point, everything had been painted rainbows on cracking walls.
At Christmas time, you'd never be able to tell how dreary the manor usually was. The dark halls had been turned into a winter wonderland, equipped with tall fir trees and a ceiling that poured with snowflakes.
The house elves always went all out at this time of the year. Even in the most mundane of places, fairy lights and sprinkles of green glitter were in every corner of the house.
Although, despite how hard we tried, there was always a hole in our hearts at festive times. Simply because there was no one else to share it with.
It wasn't like we had any family to have around by this point. Everyone was either disowned, dead or in Azkaban — so often it was just me, my parents and a large Christmas tree stacked with a hundred presents.
That evening, as I sifted through the piles - each more expensive than the last - I found myself gravitating towards the smallest of the lot. It stuck out like a sore thumb amongst a tower of green boxes, wrapped in a deep purple satin, and lined with a thin coat of dust.
"Go ahead," Mother encouraged. I looked at her uncertainly, there was an air of sadness to her, her eyes glistening with unspilled tears as she eyed up the small package.
And then I peeled away the fabric, and pulled out a book that I'd never seen before in my life.
"The Tales of the Dark Lord, Saviour of Wizard Kind."
A children's book. Specially tailored for our kind. The first of many I'd receive throughout my life.
I turned it over. Upon the back stood a tall figure, cloaked in a black hood, towering over what was seemingly a very poor-looking neighbourhood.
I wasn't a very talkative child, and only looked at my mother in confusion. A book? It'd been years since I received a book as a gift. Typically, my shelves were stocked with them anyway. They were too cheap to be a gift.
"Open it," She said softly.
I looked down again.
A scrawl of cursive handwriting, still neat like it'd been written by a school girl, was jotted onto the inside of the first page.
"It's from your Aunt Bella."
I ran my finger over the indents from where her pen had bore into the cover. I was still a weak reader, but out of the ambition to read something of my beloved aunt's, I tried my best to decipher her font:
Dearest Draco,
I hope you receive this in a time where you can understand its importance.
Power belongs to those who take it.
- Bellatrix
At the time I was blissfully unaware of her imprisonment. To my six-year-old mind, she was in Scotland, tending to important Wizarding business.
"Your mother can read it to you tonight," My father suggested eagerly.
Mother only nodded quietly. She looked like she was about to burst into tears.
At the time I was only confused. I hadn't heard of the Dark Lord before. Not until that book.
Now, after seeing what I've seen and knowing what I know, perhaps I understand why she was so sad to see it.
. . .
"What's the Dark Lord's name?" I asked later, seven years old.
My father had been adamant we read this book again and again, despite the fact I hated it.
I clutched the corner of my quilt. She'd just finished the first page and I was already full of questions about this supposed, great hero.
She thought for a moment, wondering how to simplify it for such a simple-minded being.
"Would you call mother by her first name?"
I shook my head immediately. I probably didn't even know what it was at this point. She'd always just been mother. And Bellatrix was no longer around to call her Cissy.
"Well, the Dark Lord is even more important than mother. You must value him with everything you have Draco. Please promise me that," She said. And I looked at her with wide eyes.
"More important than mother?" I asked, blissfully naïve. She nodded silently.
I replied with only a shake of my head. She broke a tearful smile.
I was used to her small bouts of tearfulness at this point. They'd begun the moment she started teaching me about the Dark Lord.
"For me?" She asked hopefully, her hand finding my cheek. I stared at her with loving eyes, letting her gentle thumb rub circles in my soft skin.
So, that's what I did.
I promised her. Because why wouldn't I?
Mother meant everything to me.
Nothing in the world was more valuable than seeing her smile.
After a moment of silence, she turned her attention back to the book.
"We can read one more before bed," She said warmly, "What about the first one?"
I nodded, curling up under the sheets. And then she began, in the same calming voice that was always able to whisk me straight into a peaceful slumber:
There once was a town, teeming with life
That housed young wizards, whose luxuries were rife.
Those born in the village possessed gifts of great powers.
They could conjure anything from water buckets to fresh sprouting flowers.
Until, one night, up in the fjord,
a large boat docked the harbour, a Muggle with a sharp sword.
So the witches clutched their children and gathered in shock.
As they watched the tall captain step onto the dock.
The Muggle clutched his belt buckle, and rose his sword high,
And spoke in a voice that stilled young babes cry.
"I come bearing no harm. I do not want a fight.
I am here to spur peace, if you'd consider my plight."
So the wizards gathered 'round, with curious ears,
As they wondered, would this muggle finally tame their fears?
For years, we'd been hunted, and drowned and burned.
So we'd gone into hiding, for we had learned,
to never trust a Muggle. Or we would be
At risk of being hunted, and drowned in the sea.
Yet, all of a sudden, we were given a peace offering.
A life void of pain, every child born without suffering.
And so we shook hands, signed a great treaty.
We must breed with the muggles, and then we'd be set free.
And thus wizardfolk and mugglefolk alike,
were free to fall in love and produce offspring of mixed blood type.
But what shortly was clear, and caused the wizards to frown,
was these children were born weakened. Their abilities watered down.
Slowly and slowly, as the years passed on,
Children born with mixed blood could not use their wands.
The village elders gathered, angered and betrayed,
The muggles only laughed, and exclaimed they'd been played!
And so, the muggles left, arms full of wizard riches,
By dusk, new folk arrived, demanding our witches.
Wizardkind was too generous, and it is now clear to see.
We hoped one day we'd be accepted. Welcomed into society.
But that will never happen, thus we should fight
to keep our magic hidden from the muggles in the night...
. . .
By the time I was eleven, my father had begun to lecture me about blood purity.
Up until now, he'd never shown so much interest in his son. He was usually distant and cold, full of more scold than praise. But now I was older, we'd spend every Friday evening in his office, going over all I needed before I emerged into the world.
I'd learned pretty much everything by now. How the Dark Lord came, what he saved, how he fell.
The prophecy.
Harry Potter.
Father would foam at the mouth whenever he spoke of him.
A mere child accidentally brought about the downfall of the greatest wizard of all time?
"A foul, unfathomable mistake!"
He'd slammed his fist onto his desk, causing me to lurch away in fright.
"I will be the one to kill Harry Potter," He'd vowed. From the look on my face, he knew he'd come across too strongly. I was as frightened as a deer in headlights, and he was the car accelerating right towards me.
He never spoke such threats again.
Other times, he would teach me about our family history: How uncommon it was to have pure magical blood.
Everyone else had been weakened by their family's inability to put their bloodline first. We were lucky.
"Love," He said, "-is the greatest deceiver of mankind, for the softest of hands can contain but the dirtiest of blood."
I was supposed to be proud of my heritage. I was supposed to look back on the deceit and the violence with a rose-tinted view of the world. The murder, the torture, the relentless arranged marriages with second cousins — Oh, but how beautiful are the hydrangeas in mother's garden! How easy are the workless days? How fun is it that I had but the latest Nimbus model, and the highest quality potions sets?
Father kept out the violent parts. He shielded me from them for as long as possible.
Perhaps they both knew how maniacal the ideas they wanted me indoctrinated into really were.
Although I often times liked to pretend I didn't have such pressures on me, the second-floor hallway was lined with family trees that stretched back to William the Conquerer — a stark reminder of the purpose I had. The reason I was made.
Many names on the walls had been scratched out with a knife. In places, the wall had been stabbed at so hard it'd cracked the stone.
Father said that mother's cousins, Sirius and Regulus, were what they called "blood traitors".
"Mother's filthy cousins received the right punishments for their betrayals of the Dark Lord," He'd revealed, one evening, late in July.
"What happened to them?" I asked cautiously.
He paced the hall, and then his gloved finger tapped on what were two particularly hateful chunks of missing brickwork.
The two sons of Orion and Walburga Black.
"Regulus died. And Sirius — well," Father grimaced at the thought, "He never was loyal to begin with. A Gryffindor — would you believe it! He ended up where all the blood traitors should be."
I hid my trembling hands behind my back. Out of childish curiosity, I couldn't help but press, "Where, Father?"
He leant closer, mumbling a word that immediately spiked my pulse.
"Azkaban."
I'd seen a rough diagram on father's drawing table, and had enough basic knowledge to know that father himself had only narrowly avoided such fate.
He was an avid follower of the Dark Lord up until the year I was born. My mother, on the other hand... was simply complacent.
She worshiped him in whispers, and enjoy all the power that came from her notoriety, but I never once heard her utter an unkind word to any of those pests father spoke of. Even the ̶m̶u̶d̶— Muggle-borns.
Whilst she read me one of the endless story books that sat upon my shelves, I sometimes questioned if her head was really as far into it as my father's was. Was she only putting up with it out of the desire to survive within the system she'd been born into?
I was, of course, raised very differently from other young wizards in the country. With my father away almost daily, I spent a lot of the time alone, suffering through more mundane days than not.
When I wasn't alone, I was with a set of handpicked personal tutors who taught me the necessary subjects they wouldn't teach me at Hogwarts, such as mathematics, reading and writing.
It was... sort of expected that children would be taught these things by their parents. However, my parents weren't too interesting in spending that much time with me, and lathered on-top a bunch of haughty subjects that made me sound more intellectual.
By aged ten I'd picked up capabilities that defied my age. I could play piano pieces from Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart and Frédéric Chopin. I spoke fluent French and was capable of reading Latin.
I couldn't say I had a talent, just a lot of time, and an awfully tired imagination.
In retrospect, perhaps they liked me being so busy I was unable to realise what was really going on out there. Maybe they feared if I was any way sentient to the real wizarding world, I'd break away from their blood-purist ideology, just like Sirius, Cedrella, Marius, Alphard or even ultimately Regulus.
I can't say I ever really asked.
If I did, I'm sure I would've received a cane to the head.
In the midst of the thousand wards upon the manor, I found myself very isolated from anything and everything. The friends I had were permitted by my father — Pure-bloods who grew up in the same situation as I. In glass houses as fragile as mine.
Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle.
They were as thick as two short planks — the two of them. Which meant they weren't exactly the most intellectually stimulating peers. But, we found common ground on my makeshift Quidditch Pitch, where we spent hours racing in circles and playing some diluted form of three-way Quidditch.
But, as all good things seemed to, things would always come to and end. The nights would draw in. They'd wave their hands at me, staggering under the sharp clasp of their mothers who would always pull on their collars.
Once they bid their goodbyes, it was just me and the shadowy halls of a house with too many empty rooms.
That was until the letter arrived.
And my world was shattered into a million tiny pieces.
Those in glass houses — ey?
They never feel the tremors of an earthquake.