Moonlight on Malfoy Manor

Prologue

Mother and child were sound asleep when he entered the room. The mother, pale and wan from exhaustion, did not stir as he approached the cradle by her bedside. He looked down at his sleeping son, seeing nothing but the outline of a tiny human form closely swathed in blankets. The only light in the room came from a single torch on the far wall - as far away from the bed as possible so as not to disturb the labour worn mother and the newborn child.

Muttering a quick spell over the child to mask any noise it might make, the father gently scooped him out of the cradle and carried him from the room. He walked down long dark corridors with his son closely nestled in his arms. He was triumphant, his entire life had been striving towards this one goal, the entire point of his existence had been to create the tiny being that lay silent and trusting in his arms. He stopped in front of a blank stonewall and tapped it with his hand. A gleaming wooden door replaced the stone. He pushed open the door and entered just as a clock chimed the half-hour. It was almost midnight.

The room was small and made of stone, the only furniture, an ancient hourglass and a low table standing on a rich woolen rug in front of the fireplace. The warm crackling fire threw a diffused, merry light on the shallow porcelain basin and the small, blue tinted, crystalline bottle that stood on the table. A soft white towel with a silver letter 'M' embroidered on it sat beside the basin. Every provision had been made to ensure his child's comfort, his Master would not be happy if anything were to happen to the newborn. He glanced quickly at the large hourglass that stood on the mantelpiece, the sand sifting rapidly. There was not much time. Quickly he crossed the room, knelt on the rug and laid the baby on the table.

Carefully he peeled away the blankets and laid the child in the basin, his legs kicking the air. The room was warm from the fire and the usually cold porcelain had also turned comfortably warm from its proximity to the flames. The baby smiled up at his father as he lay in the basin; his legs kicking weakly, playfully, tiny hands curled into feeble fists. The father stared down at his son - distant, unfamiliar feelings stirred within him for a moment... but just for a moment. He glanced once more at the hourglass, before he raised the crystal phial full of ice-blue liquid and held it over the basin. As the last of the sand slipped through and a distant clock chimed midnight, the baby opened his mouth to howl as freezing liquid splashed onto its warm little body. But no sound could be heard - the silencing spell muffled the tiny being's screams as the liquid that no fire could warm, splashed around it, glowing faintly and unnaturally blue in the white porcelain basin.

As the liquid fell the father chanted a strange spell; the liquid glowed a bright, blinding electric-blue. No longer able to look, the father averted his eyes as a harsh light momentarily swallowed up his son. When he chanced to open his eyes again, the baby lay in the basin in a tiny puddle of colourless liquid that may have been mistaken for water, its mouth still open, and its tiny lungs still working in a futile attempt to convey discomfiture.

He lifted the child quickly and dried him gently with the soft white towel. Swathed warmly in its blankets once more the infant ceased to struggle allowing himself to be gently rocked in comforting arms. The fathers face flushed with triumph as he whispered to him, not a lullaby or words of love, but an ancient spell. The baby blinked large silver-grey eyes in confusion but did not cry anymore. The father stood and left the room, to take the child, his child, his Master's child, back to his mother.

"Sleep now, little one," he whispered as he laid the child back in its cradle. "Sleep now, but the day will come when you shall achieve greatness in the service of my Master... and yours."

For the first three years of his life, inexplicably to most, the child was terrified of baby-baths; he would only allow himself to be bathed in a large bathtub, and even then only by his mother.