Davina | hp. ✓

21 | The Deadly Deed

THAT MORNING IN late August was a dreary one, with gray skies and drizzling rain pattering against the window of 12 Grimmauld Place. A thick fog hung in the air like a warnful plume of smoke, fogging up all of the windows and chasing the night owls back into their homes for the rest of the morning. Davina Malfoy sat at the head of the table in the spacious kitchen, tracing the pad of the finger around the rim of her steaming cup of herbal tea as she was lost in a dark introspection. Kreacher, a house elf now happily under her employment, was clattering around in the kitchen as he used his magic to tidy up the room from its former sloppy state under Sirius's ownership, while also whipping up some breakfast for the others who were still in bed. 

"Does Master Malfoy desire another cup of tea?" He croaked, eyeing the half-empty cup.

Davina's lips curved into a frown as she was yanked from her thoughts by the sound of the words 'Master Malfoy' coming from his lips. She was suddenly filled with a swell of disdain as she recalled how her former childhood houseelf, Dobby, used to refer to Lucius in that way -- only he maintained a tone of fear and submission. 

"Kreacher, I'd like for you to address me as Davina. Miss Davina, if you must feel so inclined." She replied with a sigh, glancing at the aged houseelf. "And once you're finished, you are to take the rest of the morning off."

"And if the others should require assistance, Miss?" 

"You tell them you're on my orders. I won't have you slaving all hours of the day."

"Yes, Miss."

As he shuffled back to his work, Davina brought the mug to his lips and savoured the taste of the strongly brewed tea on her tongue. It scalded her throat, but she didn't seem to notice much as she fell back into her thoughts. 

Out there, in the sanctity of his own home, Davina's first and most important victim was probably sleeping or enjoying his first morning brew just as she was, entirely unsuspecting of the fact that he would not live to see the evening. Anyone else would have preferred to carry out the sordid deed in the cloaking darkness of the night, but she wanted to do it in the early morning light. She wanted to be seen by the purest forms of the earth that only seem to emerge during these quaint hours when the rest of the world had not yet awoken; she wanted them to witness the girl they had failed in every way, finally consummating her dark fate. 

The Minister of Magic was going to die today.

She didn't seemed very troubled by this. Perhaps it was an early onset of shock and denial at the deed that she was about to carry out, but she seemed more bothered by the fact that she was doing it at the request of the Dark Lord than by the actual deed itself.  Should she already have such little care for the precious gift that was human life? Perhaps it was because she'd lost the one fatherly figure who ever came without strings or conditional love; the one person in her family who was just like her. Misunderstood. Exiled. Judged. Abused. Perhaps it was because she knew this would be the first of many kills. Perhaps -- and she hated this idea most of all -- she wanted to prove herself to be nothing like her fathers. She wanted to prove that she wasn't a coward like Lucius or a noble wizard like William, and use the blood of the Minister of Magic as cold, hard proof of it. 

She laughed bitterly to herself. No one ever showed her any love or took responsibility for her when it was due, and now they had to watch as she took the reins into her own hands and became the monster they never fathomed she could be. Lucius and William didn't think she was important enough to love or care for; they scorned and disowned her in their own ways, so now she would show them how sharp her tongue was, how deadly her claws were, how empty her icy eyes could become after all of those years of living in the solitary, unloving silence of St. Mungo's psych ward.