Narcissus

Narcissus

When he was small, you saw so much of you reflected in him. He was your little Dragon-flower, which, you would like to think, had blossomed under your watchful gaze. With his pale grey eyes, translucent skin and white-blonde hair, he was more a Black (an unfortunate antonym to your appearance) than his Malfoy father would ever wish, though Lucius would strongly disagree. He even had the Blackest of hearts, and that, you knew, was also a reflection of you.

He was your excellence and you couldn't get enough. When you held him in your arms for the first and only time, before he was taken mere moments after his birth and handed to a servant, you knew you had created a flawless copy of your own perfection. He had your eyes, your skin, your hair, your personality. He was you, save the minor flaw that brought pride to his father and relieved you from your duty of having to try and recreate yourself again.

You took pride in knowing, as you watched from the sidelines, that every gesture, every word, every laugh, was yours and yours alone. Long after you'd left his bedroom forever, Lucius would find you hovering over the crib, staring in silence at the babe who slept under your watchful eye. You needed nothing and no one else to complete your life and Lucius was a distraction to your obsession. The pretty wet nurses and nannies that dealt with the hands-on raising of your child would give the father the diversion he needed to leave you alone, to not disrupt your patient gazing upon the boy who was your own.

You watched serenely, staring with pride, as your little man-child became more man than child, guided by his father but merely watched by you. You couldn't bring yourself to take an active role in his upbringing, afraid that any interference would destroy the reflection that his father was creating in your image. You were not completely hands off, you knew, because it would pain you not to be part of his life, so you took on the role of comforter and protector, but it was done because you remembered your own childhood, a childhood that was reflected in your child. You kissed his hurts, you dried his tears simply because everytime he came to you, you would remember your own hurts, your own tears and the comfort you gave was a reflection of the comfort your mother gave you.

Before too long, he, as you did so long ago, was deemed ready to go out and face the world. Not alone, not at all, because you were sure his experience would be so like yours at Hogwarts. And it was. He was sorted into Slytherin and you were proud because you had been sorted into Slytherin. He was bright and you were proud, because you were bright. He played Quidditch well and you were proud because you played Quidditch well. He did not play well with others and that didn't matter.

You heard from his friends' parents that he talked about his father all the time while at school. He didn't talk about you, but that was fine because you didn't talk about your mother when you were Hogwarts. You were in awe of your own mother dearest and you knew, that your Dragon-flower was just like you. You sent him sweets every day, not just because you missed him, but also because you remembered how much you hated the food that the House-elves prepared and you wanted your son to remember the delicious provisions he was missing at home. Anything to get him to come home for a holiday. You remembered that your mother bribed you, and failed to see that as you loved your mother, he loved you and you didn't need to tempt him with pastries and biscuits.

You planned a future just like yours. He would have a powerful marriage. Perhaps it would be a loveless marriage, like the one you shared with his father, but power superseded love and the child created in your image knew the value of power. He would be wealthy, just like you. He would be respected, just like you. He would create a child in his own image, just as you had done, and you were fulfilled in the knowledge that another child would carry your eyes, your hair, and the Blackness of your heart.

But even glass between you and your reflection is breakable; though sadly you now realize you did the breaking. When he was thirteen, almost fourteen, his father wanted to send him away, take him out of your life forever and send him to Durmstrang to continue his education.

"Lucius," you pleaded. "Don't take him from Hogwarts. I couldn't bear it."

In the end, Lucius agreed. Draco stayed at Hogwarts. You wore him down. You wore them both down, ignoring the pleas from your own son, so unlike yours; failing to notice at first, the clinking of glass shattering between your ears. As he screamed at you for betraying him by not sending him away from Hogwarts, away from Harry Potter and Dumbledore, you noticed, for the first time in his life, how he had not behaved just like you. You saw his opposition from your wishes so clearly once the glass shattered.

You ignored it at first. You tried to be happy because though he was far from you, he was still at Hogwarts just as you had been. You could still send the sweets and the letters and remember how he loved you as you loved your mother. You tried to take pride in his abuse of houselves and his housemates. You tried to cheer his prowess on the Quidditch Pitch and in the classroom. You tried, desperately, deliberately, to carry on with the plan for his future and the development of your child in your reflection.

But from the moment the glass was broken, you knew there was a change.

He grew, so unlike you now, but perhaps he had always been that way. Unlike you. He was his father's child, as you were not your father's own. You tried desperately for years to pick up the pieces of your broken glass, to mold him back into your own image, but after his image shattered into a pool of shards and splinters, you knew he would never return.

You mourned him then, though he was not dead in any part of you save the reflective garden of your brain. Your Dragon-flower would not blossom there anymore. In your mind, as you stared at the broken pieces of your shattered relationship, you imagined that your Dragon-flower would return someday to the garden of your imagination. He would, you tried to tell yourself, someday help you pick up the pieces and would continue to grow in your own reflection.

But the young man behind the mirror took a path that was not reflected in your own and you were left staring at the pieces until the image faded away.