The Freckles on My Face

A Harry Potter Fanfiction by Amberpalette (Amber Carroll Stitt)

Rated PG-13 for discussion of mature and violent content. Near the end of this fanfiction (one of the last chapters), there is an ALLUSION to a past rape. It is not detailed, but it is nevertheless enough that the reader should PLEASE EXERCISE DISCRETION and NOT allow children under 14 to read that passage. Aside that, this fiction is PG.

This fanfiction is primarily an exploration of the adolescence of Draco Malfoy’s parents (particularly his father Lucius) through their interaction with a fancreated family, the Renard family of France/Beauxbatons. The Renards are © to ME and may NOT be used without permission. There are brief appearances by fancreated characters the Daire family, the Collins family, Jewlie Wells, and Michael Flanagan, all of whom are © to Lindsay Fisk and are used with permission. Abraxus Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Black-Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Black-Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, and Andromeda Black-Tonks are all © the blessed and talented J.K. Rowling.

This fanfiction is (mainly) not a social commentary piece like my Draco Malfoy story, “Wood Sorrel and Dragon Pox.” It is more a hypothetical slice of the adolescence of certain Harry Potter characters that we only know and hate as full-fledged adults. I simply contend that even the most hardened and cruel Death Eater, Nazi or Klansman may have once been a relatively normal, awkward teenager—a human being, that is—and that this fact may be what is saddest about his/her turn towards darkness. To overcome and defeat the monsters of a given society, one must be able to empathize with who those same monsters once were.

I also want to encourage young women reading this that your compassion towards that troubled young man in your life is always admirable—but I urge you, ultimately, to follow the path of Odile, not Narcissa. Read and see what I mean. And enjoy!

August, the summer before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Your heart is not open so I must go The spell has been broken, I loved you so Freedom comes when you learn to let go Creation comes when you learn to say no You were my lesson I had to learn I was your fortress you had to burn Pain is a warning that something's wrong I pray to God that it won't be long Do ya wanna go higher? There's nothing left to lose There's no more heart to bruise There's no greater power Than the power of good-bye” -Madonna

It was a most unusual situation, this.

No one really had packed the proper style of trouser socks, so all three of the Hogwarts boys were forced to wear oversized black cotton socks under their dress shoes for the party.

Well, wait, that really wasn’t what was unusual. Actually….

The Gryffindor graduate Susan Collins, a short, pretty, extremely pleasant and motherly blonde, was hosting an end-of-summer dinner for close friends and family at her Muggle aunt Sophie’s sprawling townhouse in Boston. Her parents, both Muggles as well, hastened to prepare the hors d’oeuvres, their enormous dog Charlie barked joyously at arriving guests, and her on and off boyfriend Haylin Daire (a werewolf, mind you, and a standoffish sort, but nevertheless a friend like no other), and his two best friends and their parents, had been invited. Both of the best friends had been at her place, actually, all summer: It was their parents who were the new arrivals.

One best friend was Alexis Renard, a Ravenclaw like Haylin, a charming, buoyantly cheerful boy from France who had brought along his Squib girlfriend Jewlie Wells (she had chocolate hair, note, not brown, but chocolate, and she was a Seer, and God he adored her) and her father Hal Wells, whom he had not yet met, and who was due any minute.

Renard, though he had brought his parents, Victor and Odile, and his little sister Margaret, was a bit nervous.

Haylin’s other best friend was Draco Malfoy, Slytherin Prince and Pureblood Extraordinaire, who had already apologized sixteen (actually counted) times that afternoon in anticipation of his mother Narcissa insulting Mrs. Collins’s cheese cubes and little Jewish rye bread slices. His mother was such a snob about bourgeois activities, but she wasn’t that repulsive really, that was his father—and after all, the pink-cheeked Draco added, laughing in an agitated and embarrassed fashion that sounded like hyperventilation, there was no way his father would condescend to attend a Muggle social event.

Mrs. Collins had patted the boy’s arm and smoothed his sleek white-blond hair out of his anxious eyes, and crooned that it was “quite alright.”

Draco just stood there biting his lip at the too-damn-sweet lady. “No, really, I AM sorry,” he finally said, for time number seventeen.

So Susan told her surrogate little brother—a somewhat remarkable friendship, as he called any other Muggle-born within earshot the infamous “M” word—to go fill his plate and help answer the door.

Draco started laughing like a human again, instead of a suffocated alley cat. “Right, okay,” he grumbled, regaining his haughty, defiant swagger. He smirked, situating himself between Renard, Jewlie, the wryly loitering Haylin, and the table. With much self-entitlement, he filled his plate and wolfed down every crumb.

The doorbell chimed. Draco’s smirking, wintercloud gray eyes suddenly widened in childlike wonder. “WHOZZAGON’ GETTIT?” he bellowed at the others, flinging down his paper plate.

Susan’s hermetic cousin, Michael Flanagan, jumped, nearly dropping his own toothpick speared gourmet at this outburst. He reset his thick-rimmed glasses primly. “Well,” he crisply spat.

“Jaysus Laurd, kid,” Haylin (who was Irish and proud of his Cork accent) laughed while trying to smooth down the dishevelment of both his strawberry blond curls and his helplessly wrinkled polo shirt. “Get it yourself!”

Renard’s mother Odile tossed back her auburn hair and let out a throaty womanly laugh. His father Victor rolled his eyes and sucked in his olive cheeks. Renard himself smiled sheepishly at Jewlie, anticipating that this might be her hailed and hallowed father at last.

Draco rushed to the door in his floppy, too-large black trouser socks, silver tie a bit askew, finishing off the last of the coveted Cheddar cheese cubes on his way and grinning at Haylin’s roars of mock protest from the balcony door. His white marble cheeks flushed delicate peach with the exhilaration of the chill evening wind as Susan’s mother, a plate of shrimp and sauce balanced in one hand, flung open the front door. Jim Collins’s Labrador, Charlie, followed Draco closely, his wagging tail whopping the side of the boy’s black trousers.

“Hullo, hullo, welcome!” Mrs. Collins cried at the open doorway, rather frighteningly cheerful in her display of motherly hospitality, her dimpled apple cheeks glowing. She seized her latest guest’s hand in her small warm round grasp and squeezed.

“Mum!” Draco happily barked, trying to sidestep the hostess.

Narcissa Black Malfoy was decked head to toe in a pale ice green crinoline evening gown with trim and overcloak of snow-white ermine. She blinked her long fair eyelashes at her overzealous greeter, then flashed a startlingly uncharacteristic, warm smile at her only child, aquamarine blue eyes softening. “Darling,” she crooned, gliding forward and embracing her son, her platinum blonde hair, a mix of French twist and chignon, burning with an interlaced headpiece of shimmering white diamonds.

Draco had been mid-bow, as was old wizarding filial custom, when his mother enveloped him. His cheeks ignited red now, with a mixture of awkwardness and contentment. He retuned the hug tightly. “Missed you,” he mumbled, mouth against her shoulder, great gray eyes partially obscured by his drained-blond hair.

“I know,” she breathed back, stroking the back of that sleek young head with a diamond and peridot ringed hand. “I missed you too, my heart.”

Someone behind them cleared his throat and rapped something sharp and metal on the hardwood floor of the foyer.

Draco looked up and all the color seeped from his cheeks. “…Father,” he said, guardedly.

Oops. Well hell froze over.

Crap.

Draco began to back away from his mother, with the distinct look of caged prey. His fingers trembled slightly as he straightened that errant tie.

The entire room stiffened.

The very last person anyone would have anticipated was standing in the foyer of a “Mudblood’s” home.

Lucius Malfoy sniffed at the room, his silver, emerald-eyed snake cane planted on the floor of the Collins household entryway. His hair, the silver-white blond of his son’s, was brushed to glossiness and tied back with a colonial era squire’s black velvet bow. He wore long shimmering dress robes of the same color as his wife’s gown, the textiles sporting more hooks, jewels, and buttons than any sane individual would ever dare endure. His arctic gray eyes circumvented the small crowd in one imperious sweep. He loomed inside with the air of one who intends to be formally announced to a crowd of the highly upper crust.

Featuring, perhaps, a small trumpet fanfare.

“Good evening, Dra-co,” he purred, his drawling voice lilting airily up at the end of his son’s name. He looked bored, as if he had shown up as the result of great pains to his own personal schedule. This appearance had, rather obviously, been a deep favor to his wife alone.

An unkindly sporting look had come into Victor Renard’s fiery brown gaze. He smirked but remained silent. This was most likely because Odile had seized his forearm and squeezed it quellingly until her knuckles had whitened.

Lucius swept past wife and child without a single backward glance, settling himself by the food table and crossing his richly clad arms with arrogance and obstinacy. Fingers tightly clutched around his cane, he spoke not another word.

His eyes settled on the remainders of the cheese, a combination of Brie, Havarti, and Monterey Jack. His nostrils curled at the colloquial toothpick presentation.

Odile watched him closely and slipped past her husband, hoping to buffer the unexpected guest from less fortunate individuals who might cross his path.

Such as her son.

And her daughter.

And her son’s best friend.

And Lucius’s own son, who looked very close to vomiting on the Turkish area rug for anxiety. Thankfully Margaret, in her pearls and little white cotton summer shift, had made her way over to her third “big brother,” and was hugging his arm comfortingly. Draco’s complexion shed its gray-green tones and he seemed to breathe easier.

Gradually the buzz of companionable chatter resumed. Renard seemed both relieved and disappointed, and Jewlie hugged his waist and pecked him on the cheek, urging calm and patience.

Narcissa watched Odile with a glare at first vitriolic; she knew that woman’s history with her husband, back in their schooldays at Hogwarts, and her somewhat irrational suspicions were buzzing high. Susan’s mother, however, soon distracted her with probing questions about the Ministry of Magic and this “Durmstrang” school in Germany, of which Draco so often glowingly spoke.

“Lucius,” Odile chimed. “My God, it’s been years.” She touched his arm to catch his attention.

Malfoy Senior blinked at her. His brooding, arrogant expression altered subtly, such that the frown line between his fair eyebrows was less pronounced and the corners of his lips curled up like the taut ends of a pale pink bow. “Indeed, Odile,” he spoke. “And the years have, it seems, been uncommonly good to you.” And then he actually smiled. It was quite charming, and despite the fact that his gaze flicked over to gain a satisfied glimpse of Victor’s irritated visage, the grin possessed a grain of genuine delight in her presence. Then he took her hand and kissed it.

Victor’s jaw muscle tensed. Narcissa’s teeth ground.

“Why thank you, cher,” Odile replied, retrieving her hand somewhat hastily.

No time was wasted with awkward small talk. As though they had seen each other the day before, she launched into a barrage of riotous stories about her days as a Healer at St. Mungo’s—one of which included charming the gurneys of an unpopular Mediwizard’s operating room to his ceiling on Halloween.

Lucius smirked, chuckled, and loudly laughed, in that order, making no attempt to stifle the boisterous cackles that escaped him.

At which point hell again froze over.

Draco gazed over at his father with an expression of abject shock.

“Yer da’s human tonight,” Haylin remarked, blinking.

“Because my mama is remarkable,” Renard quipped.

“Um.” Draco’s wide gray stare turned on the French boy with slight irritation. “I think you’re more correct than you realize,” he mumbled.

Odile’s smile, however, never wavered. An hour of reminiscing aside, she remarked, “By the way, they still talk about your donation to St. Mungo’s. Bit of a publicity stunt?”

Lucius’s eyes glistened wryly. Tiny creases formed beneath them; his smile actually reached his gaze for once. “Maybe.”

“But there was kindness in it.”

“You think so?” Now he was grinning, she perceived, at her calm, bold carriage. A figure as intimidating as him probably did not get many actual, entertaining challenges from his peers. But she had always challenged him, in a sporting sort of way. He had always loved it.

“And to the ward in which I was hospitalized during my….break.”

“Correct. How astute, my dear.”

“Because I was in it.”

“….Possibly.” His lips hardly moved when she spoke. Like a ventriloquist controlled his cool, gliding words and gestures. She’d always found that fascinating.

She sighed and nodded once, slowly. “Merci, old friend. A good deed in the midst of, I am told, much foul mischief.”

“All in the eye of the beholder.” A sneering edge entered his smile for a moment, but his eyes became sober. “It is never too late to renounce your ties with Albus Dumbledore’s lot. I could convince the Master whom I serve of your entire family’s fealty to him. It would not be that much trouble for you and yours, Odile. You need do nothing but let him complete his task, without standing in his way. Turn a blind eye. I can help you.”

“No, Lucius.” Odile’s tone dipped low. “No. You know how I always felt about Tom Riddle and his nasty, megalomaniacal rhetoric.”

Lucius’s cheekbones sucked inward. “That is no longer his name.”

“It is to me. He can pretend he is whatever he likes, but I will not participate in his cruel masquerade. No, Lucius.”

“Odile. You saved my wife’s life only three years after Draco was born.” There was something new and foreign on Lucius Malfoy’s face now: Uncertainty. Fear.

“And you needn’t return the favor. Not like that.” She took his hand again, the one she had so decisively repelled moments ago, and squeezed it. Tightly.

Silence.

Odile smiled warmly up at her fellow guest’s struggling face, still holding onto his larger, stronger hand. His grasp was limp. His jaw muscle clenched and unclenched rhythmically as he thrust an expression of icy daggers across the Muggle interior, eyes cast only slightly in relief by the platinum streaks of hair that slipped out of his queue. “These people,” he grumbled, in a tone of utter disgust. His expression was now strangely pained. “You always feel the need to protect their kind. It is utterly inscrutable.”

“And you think that is the only reason why I chose Victor, and you chose Narcissa, all those years ago? We chose the right spouses for so many other reasons, Lucius, and you know that.” Odile suddenly felt very tired. She wriggled her fingers, experimenting with retrieving her hand again.

But Lucius would not give her hand back. His grasp remained loose but resolute. His eyes flashed across her face, and there was an echo of betrayal crackling in his gray irises. In a slightly feverish tone, he whispered, “Not that it really matters at THIS point, Odile, but you were MINE first. NOT his, and don’t you forget that.”

Calmly, she replied, “I was and am no one’s but my own.”

“You will never know what I would have gladly given you. But don’t fret, my dear, she got all of it instead. I DO hope you’re content with that.” He nodded ferociously at his wife, who was still obliviously gabbing with her engaging hostess, laughing in a silvery way, like sickles falling on cobblestone. “My Cissa certainly is.”

Oh, was she? Odile noticed the vein pulsing against her old friend’s fair forehead, heard the strain in his words, and certainly perceived forced effort in the haughty façade of satisfaction that Narcissa was sporting. And she wondered how much of Lucius’s bragging was truth, and how much a spiteful comeback tossed at her decades late.

Draco and Renard were staring at their father and mother, respectively, now. Haylin, for the sake of the spectacle, had joined them in their wide-eyed, curious gawking. Little Margaret, still attached to Draco’s waist, smiled at her mother and waved sunnily.

Odile waved back, and watched the kids, then Narcissa. She looked at Lucius, and then over at her husband Victor, who was doing everything he could to seem inconspicuous but who was, quite endearingly, loitering at the wine bottles and getting himself a bit drunk on the Chardonnay in order to closely monitor what the six-foot-one blond snake was doing and saying to his adored wife. She smiled, if it were possible, both happily and sadly all at once. “Lucius.”

“What?” Spoken with great annoyance.

“….Can you count the freckles on my face?”

A pause.

Then he turned to her, very slowly. Sadness haunted that troubled expression—so subtly that it was nearly indeterminable even to Odile, who was but inches from him. Then it was gone, and his calmly snide expression of custom was restored. But…“There are just enough to make you beautiful,” he said.

And then she felt his hand squeeze hers. Tightly.