Michaela's Cousin

Michaela's Cousin

Sunlight flooded through the massive floor-length windows that led from the kitchen out into the vast expanse of grass, flowers and trees that made up the back garden of Malfoy Manor.

Narcissa sat at the large ebony kitchen table, surrounded by books and papers. There was a large shipment of spell books arriving later that day, so she had went through Lucius's study, removing anything not being used. Normally, a house-elf would do such a menial task, but she didn't trust them with her husband's important papers.

She had just decided to take a break for lunch when the doorbell rang. She heard the door opening and then the sounds of heavy, dragging footsteps coming down the hallway and towards the kitchen.

The door to the kitchen opened, revealing a small, rounded woman with curly dark hair, big front teeth and a wide smile. Standing behind her, almost hidden from view, was a small child. The only part of the child visible was two arms tightly wrapped around her mother's robes.

Narcissa stood up to greet her guest. "Emma, it's so wonderful to see you! You're just the excuse I need to take a break from all of this," she said, gesturing at the overladen table.

"What's up? House-elves on strike, are they?" Emma said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Narcissa laughed then said, "No. Lucius just doesn't trust them with all of his precious papers. If something were lost, he just might forget whom he was blackmailing. How's Michaela been?"

Just then, the pounding and thudding of footsteps was heard reverberating off the highly polished marble floors. The kitchen door flew open, and Draco entered, his hair covered in leafs and twigs.

Spotting Michaela behind her mother, he gave out a happy shriek and ran over to them. He grabbed one of Michaela's hands and began yanking and tugging her away from her mother.

"Draco! DRACO! Be careful with her!" Narcissa admonished, worried that he might hurt her.

Michaela let herself be dragged from the kitchen. They could soon be seen playing happily with Draco's toy brooms, their toes barely skimming the freshly mowed lawn.

Emma and Narcissa stood, watching Draco and Michaela play. Then they turned away from the window and walked towards the table. As they sat down at the table, Narcissa commented, "I'm glad there's at least one person Draco gets along with. Gregory Goyle and his mother came over yesterday; they had only been in the back garden for two minutes before I heard screams. I looked out the window, and there was Draco hitting Gregory. I wish he wouldn't hit...it is just so Muggle-like."

Emma responded consolingly, "Oh, I'm sure Draco won't be a bully forever. He'll grow out of it eventually."

They sat at the table chatting, and then Emma's eyes spotted a large dusty book sitting half buried under a pile of papers.

"Narcissa! Is that our old Hogwarts yearbook?" Emma said, removing the book from where it had been hidden and looking at the cover. "And look! Here's your wedding album too!"

"Oh, Emma, you don't want to look at those old things!" Narcissa exclaimed, laughing, trying to pull the yearbook away from her.

"Come on, it'll be fun to look through it," Emma said coaxingly.

Emma scooted her chair closer to where Narcissa was sitting, and they began looking through the book.

"There you are, Narcissa, at the Yule Ball with Lucius. You look so beautiful in your dress robes. And look, you've got your old nose too!"

"You're lucky you're only a distant cousin, or you'd have the Black nose yourself. I don't know why all the women in the family have that hideous nose. The men are handsome, like Sirius is. Maybe it suits them better. Anyway, thank Merlin we found a good cosmetic Healer to correct things. Although it did cost Father quite a few Galleons."

They both laughed and went back to looking at the yearbook. Just then they heard screaming and crying coming from the back garden. Emma and Narcissa jumped up from the table and ran over to the windows, trying to see what had happened.

They saw Michaela on the ground, holding her knee and crying. Draco had his arm around her shoulders, rubbing her back, trying to comfort her.

Emma and Narcissa hurried out to the back garden through the floor length windows. Draco came running up to Narcissa.

"Mummy, Michaela's hurt!" His little face scrunched up in worry and concern.

Emma took out her wand and cast a healing spell over Michaela's scraped knee. She held Michaela close, then motioned for her to go back to playing with Draco.

As they walked back into the house, Narcissa asked, "So, what have you decided about Michaela? Are you still planning on sending her to that Muggle school?"

"I know you don't approve of her going to a Muggle school, but we've searched England for a magical primary school that caters to deaf children, and we just couldn't find one. The school she'll be going to has a fine reputation. I think she'll really learn a lot there. She'll get a lot of benefit from being with other deaf children. And it's not as if she'll be in Muggle schools forever. Once she turns eleven, she'll be going to St Ouen of Rouen's Magical School for the Deaf in London.

Narcissa leaned over and hugged Emma, then said sadly, "I know it's been hard for you. It must have been a very difficult decision. It's just when I think of Michaela, a pure-blood witch surrounded by Muggles...it just doesn't seem right."

They sat at the table, sadness pervading the room. Emma, not wanting to ruin the afternoon, reached out and grabbed Narcissa and Lucius's wedding album.

"Let's look at this to cheer ourselves up. That was a happy day wasn't it?" she said, opening the wedding album. Spotting a picture of herself in her bridesmaid dress, she added, "I was a lot thinner then."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Michaela's parents had discovered she was deaf, it had been a horrible shock. They had known something was wrong with their baby when she didn't start making the cooing and gooing noises other babies her age were making. At first, they had thought that she might just have been a little slow, but after having taken her to St Mungo's for a check up they had found out the devastating news.

They had been faced with a hard decision. A witch who couldn't hear how the spells were pronounced would be unable to do magic. She wouldn't be able to go to Hogwarts. Her parents had dreamed of the day when she started school. They had had such high hopes for her.

They had fought with each other, cried together, then finally decided the best thing to do would be to send her to a Muggle school for the deaf until she turned eleven and was old enough to go to a magical secondary school. They had felt that Michaela being around other children who were also deaf and going to a school that understood the challenges faced by deaf children would be the best thing for her.

She had started the Royal School for the Deaf at Margate when she was four, and now was boarding there full time, coming home only on the weekends. She and Draco still kept in touch, using Draco's eagle owl to bring letters back and forth every week.

She liked the school, an imposing series of red-brick buildings surrounded by trees and grassy fields. She liked the teachers too. They genuinely cared about the students and wanted them to succeed. In fact, she liked everything about going to the Royal School. What she didn't like was some of the local Muggles who tormented her and her classmates when they went on field trips into town.

Last week, a group of Muggle teenagers had followed them around the shops. They had mocked their use of sign language and their attempts at talking. They had pulled crazy looking faces and pretended that they were crippled or blind. The teenagers had been so obnoxious the teachers had had to threaten them with the police.

Michaela was so upset, so frightened by what had happened, that for the first time in her life she was glad she was deaf; she didn't want to know what the boys had been saying.

She had written Draco about it, and he was livid. Now, she wished she had never told him about it; it just gave him more of a reason to hate Muggles.