“Papa, are people in the portraits alive?”, a little girl, June asks her father with innocent curiosity.
“Of course not my dear, they are merely a memory of the people who leave us”, her father dismisses it as something ridiculous.
“Then why do we paint them, mummy’s portrait is nice, but why do we still keep Grandpa Charley? He’s at least been in this house for thousands of years, and he’s so mean saying I should act like a proper lady, all the time”, June whines in confusion. After-all, the old old man is mean to mummy too and she is one of the nicest portraits in the manor.
“We can’t just throw him like that, June”, her father reprimands her lightly and continues, “Your grandpa is still part of this family, even if he is mean, that just means you have to work harder to get along with him, even if he’s not alive he’s still protecting us by watching over us using the portrait.”
“Sorry papa”, she mutters, she hates making her father sad but she knows something that always cheers him up.
Asking about his work, obviously.
“Papa can you tell me about the painting you made for Lord and Lady Malfoy?”, the blonde girl asks, hoping it will distract her father.
“Of course sweetheart”, her father mutters fondly.
“The painting I made for them is one of my best masterpiece, it showcases both cunningness and dignity that the Malfoy family very much treasure, Lady Malfoy with her brown curls that indicate softness framing her heart shaped face that have carvings of steel eyes. Her entire posture screams radiance and elegance that no women could ever hope to achieve.”
June knows, this is where her papa always puts a twist, where she knows she can never predict how the story will end. Some times it ends happily, some sad, some sad and happy (she still can’t understand how a story can be both, her papa says she’s too young to understand). She knows she can’t guess it but she still wants to try.
“Is the women a siren, papa?”, she wondered, that wound explain the steel – grey eyes and the softness part, she has pictures of really pretty sirens in a muggle storybook once.
“No, she is not, but just there are some similarities between them, Lady Malfoy holds her beauty as her weapon but her heart is ugly, her soul twisted and yet, despite people knowing this people get played as a toy in her hands, she can play a person as sweetly and gently as she play a violin in her studio. That, my dear June is not someone you mess with.”
“Ohhhhhh, she sounds scary, papa, can you protect me from her?”
“Of course sweet-tums”
“Thank you, papa”, June knows he’ll protect her, her papa is the best.
“Now may I continue the story?”
“Yes, papa”
“Next to the women with his right hand wrapped around her waist, proudly standing with a staff on his left is Lord Malfoy. He’s painted as a man filled with pride for his family name, son and overall lifestyle, but, upon looking closer at the ice-blue eyes desperation is evident. A man whose sole purpose to follow another man who doesn’t give him a time of the day, only still keep following him no matter the cost. With his shape nose and jaw, that can break even the strongest of character, all he can do is stay compliant as his life falls into the violet sunset he has deluded into thinking as his. Strong he may appear but obsession taints his soul.”
June doesn’t understand the big, adultly words her father said but she knows one thing, “Papa? Is the man seeing the world like brother does?”
It made sense to her, if the man is seeing things that others can’t see, then he’ll also be buried in the ground, like Jake, like mummy and come back as a portrait.
“No, well yes? It’s complicated dear, he can’t see like Jake but he thinks like him, living in a world that isn’t our own”, he replied, wondering whether such explanations get easier as she grows.
“Oh, okay”
“Both of them have a son who is very much not like them, witty, charismatic and intelligent but just like his father before him, he’s falling for the same violet disease that his father did. Will anyone save the poor boy that is falling into the violet that has shown its true colours to be red? Red as blood that spills their manor, for they have accepted the trojan horse and it has planted its seed, now they’ll never be freed. Red stains their paintings now, they’ve fallen, no salvation given.”, papa ends with a satisfied not that indicates the end.
“Awww, this one was a sad one”, she pouts because the sad ones are not fun, she can tell its the sad one when papa narrates solemnly.
“Yes pumpkin but remember, without sad ones the happy ones will have no one to switch rounds with”, her papa repeats his favourate phrase to her but she wants to have a happy one.
“Please papa, one more story but a happy one this time?”, she gives him the best puppy eyes but papa seems to be immune to them by now.
“If you sleep you might get a happy one tomorrow”
“Ok”, not wanting to push the issue more she quickly curled herself into the blanket and closed her eyes willing sleep to get her soon.
The man looks at his daughter as her breathing becomes even, her face relaxing only to display the childish innocence. These are the type of times he is glad his daughter can’t see what he sees.
“Goodnight, my dear, when the time comes you’ll be one of my masterpiece, the world will forever see your beauty, unlike the vile, monstrous Malfoys”, John, the father mummers.
Staring at the crimson liquid that spills from the blonde’s stomach, John wonders where things had gone so wrong.
Was it when the first Fawley decided to create life like portraits? Or was it when they started using the family gift of soul sight to make those paintings? Or was it when that spawn of devil encouraged another Fawley to join into his twisted world? Maybe he’ll never know.
Either way he continues to stare at the brunette who is painting a majestic portrait of her husband using said husband’s blood, decorating the frame with the poor man’s intestine, blood drenches – the frame, the painting, the women’s hands and even her beautiful frilly aqueous green gown, her haunting blues and lazy grin look maniacal alongside the fast strokes of her brush and the shaking pallet on her left hand.
“Why do you do this?”, He can’t help but ask, he knows why but its hard to accept it when he still remembers this woman as an innocent girl who would never hurt a fly.
“Why? You know why? You did it to – to preserve, obviously”, the woman replies simply, going back to focusing on her new masterpiece.
“What are you calling this one? Lost innocence? “, he can’t help but give a bitter chuckle.
“Don’t be foolish, Ab had no innocence to speak of from moment he started Hogwarts and met him. No I’m naming it ‘my beloved’, after-all I lost him in the end despite trying my best to keep his attention on me. All because he was soooo enchanted by him.”, she narrows her eyes as she says this and continues with angry strokes, now painting in velvet.
“An open casket funeral cannot happen, you do realise it right? What about him, wouldn’t he be displeased to know what you have done to his right-hand man?”, John hopes he doesn’t kill her, she hasn’t even started on her own portrait yet.
“Oh don’t worry papa, he is the one who gave me permission for this, he wants Luce to take over his father’s role, Ab was getting too attached to the boy, shielding him from his duty to the cause. This is Ab’s punishment for backstabbing us both.”, his daughter – nothisnotanymore – says it as if this is an expected course of action, maybe it is for her, "as for the funeral, it is known that the Malfoys are in China, it wouldn't be hard to make it look like an accident".
He sighs, thinking back to those days where her hair was blonde and her smiles were true, back when her correspondence with that monster looked like a normal talk, back when she just started being courted by the Malfoy boy and not sure if she should let it continue, back when she listened to her papa,
“You know, I always found you and this painting of mine strange, do you know why?”, June, not his June but a mockery of her, said out of nowhere.
“Why?”
“You always say stories about your paintings but your a portrait of my father before my Hogwarts letter arrived, so tell me how do you know all this?”, her head tilts sideways in enquiry, yet she doesn’t turn away from her painting.
“You painted me, shouldn’t you know how? Anyway why is the painting in warm colours? Abraxas was more of a cold person, wouldn’t that suit him more?”, he’s really curious about that, the Abraxas that won his daughter’s heart was cold, calculating and expressionless, a true Slytherin.
“Cold?”, she repeats it to understand the sheer strangeness of the statement, cold? Her husband? She can only wish. Continuing with a mix of red and yellow, she replies, “Cold doesn’t suit him, not when he is so attached to both him and our son”
Exhausted, she stands ready to head to bed, she turns to look at her younger self’s painting, commenting, “I still wonder, why did you gift that portrait to us during my wedding? I know for a fact that you hated the Malfoys and my marriage into their family, was it to mock us, like you just told baby me?”
He sighs again knowing if he remains silent now he’ll never tell it, “Despite everything you are my daughter, I’ll have to accept your choices as your own, no matter how it reflects on me, your not my little June, you’ve grown and this child is the proof that at some point you were mine whereas that portrait I gave you is what you have become. Not mockery, just the truth”, he explains it as he would have, when the girl had been his apprentice.
“Ah, that makes sense, well then its getting late, Goodnight, Father”
From his frame he watches as she goes, leaving behind her husband’s corpse and portrait within the blood stained walls.
“Goodnight, June”
The name doesn’t suit the monster she has become.