My Little Dragon

My Little Dragon...

The young boy ran ahead of his mother, through the Manor's gardens, pale grey eyes bright, silvery-blonde hair dishevelled. He was like any normal boy his age, inquisitive, full of infectious happiness, all scraped knees, stubbed toes and a smile like sunshine. His mother clutched her long skirt in one delicate hand, the other holding a picnic basket.

"Wait for your poor mother, Dragon" she called, blue eyes bright, blonde hair streaming down her shoulders and catching the rays of noontime sun.

The two of them laughed and played, singing ridiculous songs, while concentrating hardest on clapping games and their counterpart rhymes. Until they arrived back at the Manor, where the cold steel of the building itself began to dampen high spirits.

"Do not encourage him, Narcissa," Lucius growled with a look of disdain. "Dark wizards do not play clapping games.

What happened to my little Dragon? It has been years since he was my innocent baby boy. And all I did was watch. I sat on the sidelines in my white silk kid gloves, legs lightly crossed, smiling at Lucius as he warped and drilled evil Malfoy traditions of old into my son. I wandered silently through my private world, which consists only of the twists and turns of Malfoy Manor. Following the path my feet have already picked out for me, subconsciously avoiding my beloved husband as well as my son.

The memories linger here, floating in the nooks and crannies, bubbles that I could almost stretch out my fingers to stroke. I remembered when the pressures started. When Lucius started training Draco to be the perfect son, the perfect student, the perfect Death Eater and the perfect model of what Lucius himself had never been. And my little Dragon was only six. Lucius gave Draco the best things the Malfoy fortune could buy; well qualified teachers, etiquette coaches, physical trainers.

At eight Draco was as stronger in body than any wizard child I have ever seen. By the end of that year he was emersed in books, books that he shouldn't have been touching until he started Hogwarts. Already I could feel my son slipping further and further beyond my grasp. He never wanted to play anymore, never wanted to just take a day to explore the surrounding forests. It was as Lucius had said. Dark wizards don't play clapping games. I would stand for hours outside the study door, hearing Lucius's words enter Draco's maturing head like poison, wondering if I should be thinking of reprimanding Lucius for telling his son how to be a Death Eater was the most noble thing a pure-blood wizard could do, that Voldemort was always right and that killing a Mudblood was never wrong.

I could see Draco lapping up the information, begging his father to tell him more, then even more. Soon I was no longer lingering outside the study, but beside the trapdoor in the floor of the drawing room, hearing Draco laugh with delight when his father showed him how each dark instrument worked. Slowly but surely Draco was morphing into someone new. I could not help thinking that even if Draco had begun his metamorphosis as a caterpillar that he was going to end it as a spider, not a butterfly.

My fears were realised on the day we sent my little Dragon to Hogwarts School, and I sat back on the sidelines again watching my boy. Observing his impatient swagger into the train station, the cutting comments he made about his fellow students on the platform, his disdainful glares when my eyes were wet with tears and how, when he boarded the train he never even said goodbye. Draco did not look back, a mark of a child who has been pushed into premature self-dependence. My heart sank as I realised too late, that Draco did not need us anymore. I was too late to save my little Dragon.

I am sitting beyond the sidelines now, but still observing. Now, as I watched Pansy Malfoy-Parkinson sitting on the sidelines wearing her white silk kid gloves, lightly crossing her legs and smiling at Draco as he warps my grandson.

Watching her running to me crying, "What happened to my little Elijah? When did he stop being my little boy?"

And so the corruption of innocence was an infinite circle...

THE END