The Malfoy Project

𝟏𝟎 - 𝐒𝐧𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐄𝐲𝐞𝐬

     I barely have time to change the reel when Lucius enters and I find the chair across me occupied as quickly as it had been emptied.

     "Did he answer all your questions satisfactorily?" he questions, leaning his cane against the arm of the chair like before.

     "Oh, yes," I say, adjusting the volume meter. "He was much more obliging this time."

     "Nothing too incriminating, I hope?" Lucius' voice had a velvet softness to it, the whisperings of the ocean before a storm.

     "We just spoke about his childhood, what it was like growing up here. And a bit about school as well."

     He chuckles nervously at the mention of Draco's childhood. "Gabriella, you must remember that my son has been through a lot. He's still reeling from everything that has happened, and it might serve you better to take everything he says with a pinch of salt. He does have a penchant for dramatising events."

     I look at the weighted piece of wood by him. The snake's emerald eyes glint back at me maliciously; its mouth hangs open, two fangs like daggers ready and poised to draw blood. How much can one dramatise being struck by an instrument like that?

     "I will keep that in mind," I smile. "Shall we begin where we left off the last time?"

     "And remind me, where was that?"

     "I believe you and Bas had just met Narcissa and Andromeda at the start of your Second Year. Something along the lines of the beginnings of a bitter rivalry?"

     "Ah, yes. I do wish I could blame her for climbing aboard that damn train and finding our compartment. But it wasn't her fault, I suppose. She couldn't possibly have known what she was about to start."

     "Who?"

     "Why, my Cissy, of course."

     "What did she do?"

     He shifts forward in his seat slightly. "It didn't really begin right then and there, but I'm of firm belief Narcissa upset something in the cosmos when she set foot in our cabin, wearing her frilly collared blouse and tweed jacket like she were going to the bloody races. That was the very moment the rot set in."

     "Sorry, Mr. Malfoy, I want to just get something out of the way quickly. I did a little digging prior to the first interview, and I've found that Lycus Sebastian Malfoy was admitted to St. Mungos just," - I flip through my notes - "two years after you graduated?"

     He raised his eyebrows in affirmation. "That's correct."

     "For... irreversible magical damage."

     "Yes."

     "What happened?"

     "I suppose that's what I shall be getting to. Because for you to know what happened - and above all, understand why - I'll have to begin from the beginning. Like I said, the moment we both laid eyes on Cissy was when the rot set in. But it really began to fester in our Fourth Year."