Davina | hp. ✓

09 | A Mother Scorned

DAVINA'S SLEEP WAS plagued by horrible nightmares that night. She fell asleep thinking about the concern written in William's striking blue eyes, but her dreams threw her back to a time to a and vivid, heartwrenching memory when she found herself staring into her own father's cold, contemptuous eyes.

It was the day when she and Draco returned home from school when she was in her third year and he was in his second year. Davina relinquished Dobby the house-elf's employment with the Malfoy family with a little help from Harry Potter, so when her parents did not come to meet them at the platform, she figured they must have been angry. She and Draco were escorted home by a new house-elf who seemed afraid to speak to them or meet their gazes, and she already knew that her father had shown her her place as a lowly servant.

Davina expected to find her father at home and ready to deliver a horrible scolding, but when they walked through their front door with their trunks in tow and headed into the living space, she was only confused.

"Well, we're home," Draco announced, glancing warily at his sister as he, too, tried to figure out what was going on. "Why didn't you come to get us?"

Lucius stood at the back of the room with one hand braced on the fireplace mantel and the other on the head of his snake-head staff. A few feet from him, Narcissa was collapsed in an armchair with tears streaming down her face as she viewed her children. Davina looked first at her father, and then to her, and she would never forget the way her mother looked at her that day. It was a knowing look, an apologetic look, as she knew exactly what her father planned to do.

"I'm afraid I've been making preparations for your sister, Draco."

Draco furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"

"What sort of preparations?" Davina swallowed, setting her trunk down.

Lucius clasped his hands over his staff and glowered at his daughter. "I've always known you weren't right in the head, but I suppose I never wanted to see it. You mother has begged me for years to not seek treatment for your...unique disposition...but after the incredulous stunts you've pulled this past month, I see no other choice."

"Unique disposition?! If you mean saving an eleven-year-old girl from a cursed diary you planted for her to find, then yes, let's call it that! Or perhaps how I responded when you tried to put that diary in my hands, knowing what it would do to me?!" Davina raised her voice, growing red in the face as she balled her fists. Narcissa squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head as if that was a sentence within itself. "I am not the ill one here, father, you are! To go after children -- your own daughter -- just to get power and status!?!"

Two men in gray uniforms emerged from the adjacent dining room and the children realized at once what was happening. As they advanced around the room toward Davina, Lucius stepped forward, excellently masking his anger.

"Until you have proven to be rehabilitated, you will stay in St. Mungo's Psychiatric Ward where you will receive the finest care and get the help you so desperately need!"

Davina stared incredulously at him as the men -- the guards -- grabbed a hold of her arms. "You can't do this! I'm not crazy! You're the mental one! Stop! STOP! I'M NOT CRAZY!"

The men began to shuffle out of the room with her in tow. When Draco dropped his things and ran to help her fight the men off, Lucius grabbed him and held him in place with two firm hands on his shoulders. Behind him, Narcissa slipped off of the chair and crumpled to her knees, muffling her sobs with her hand as she watched them take her only daughter away.

"MOTHER! HELP ME! DRACO! NO, NO! STOP! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS! FATHER, TELL THEM! I'M NOT MAD! PLEASE! PLEASE, LET ME GO! DADDY!"

Davina screamed until her throat was sore and her lung gave out, and her vision dissipated into complete blackness. The darkness wrapped around her, consuming her, and she felt as though she was choking on it as her screams died into sobs that wracked her body. Her bedroom door flew open, the lights flickered on, and she realized that she was in her bed, tangled in the duvets. An alarmed Sirius stood in the doorway with his wand poised to ward off what he thought was imminent danger, but when he realized what happened, he discarded it onto her nighttable and pulled her into his arms.