Status: A life in snapshots

The Silver Three

Garden Lunches

My knuckles hurt. They are bruised and bleeding, but I put my hands in front of my face again. The statue in the ballroom has come to life at father’s influence. He leans against the wall with his arms crossed, watching me as I practice the punches and moves that he has taught me. Ducking as the statue swings at me, I swing my closed fist upwards, connecting with the statues jaw.

The landed hit vibrates my arm. The punching hurts me more than it hurts the statue. This is a part of the lesson, that everything comes at a cost and that everything can make you bleed. The past month has involved lessons like this with father. He wants me to know how to fight without a wand, how to use my fists even if it hurts. He says that sometimes wands breaks or we are disarmed, and we must never stop fighting.

My hands are bruised and broken after every one of these sessions. After the first three of father not allowing anyone to mend my hands, he begins fixing them. This is because he wants me to know the pain of having broken hands. I don’t know what lesson this teaches me other than I’m helpless when my fingers are broken and I cannot use my wand.

Perhaps that was the lesson.

I duck again as the statue comes at me and I spin. This time I get behind the statue and kick it hard with my foot. It stumbles and falls forward, off balance. When the statue hits the hard, polished wood of the ballroom, it breaks. Father pushes himself off of the way and claps. I smile, though I am sweaty and in pain.

At fourteen, my dark hair is longer than ever and braided behind my back. I’ve finally began to grow taller, though it is not by much. My face no longer has the same roundness that it used to and mother tells me often that I get my lovely shape from her side of the family. I don’t care whether it is true or not.

Father gestures for my hands and I hold them out. They are scabbed and scarred. He holds his wand over my hands and quietly says, “Episkey.”

My knuckles itch as they mend and the skin stitches together. When they are fixed, I flex my fingers a few times. They’re still sore, but they no longer ache like they did the first few lessons.

“You’re moving much faster now, and you’re light on your feet.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” is my only response. This is always how I speak to my family, in small short bursts. We don’t have much to say.

“Do you have all of your things for this year?” I nod that I do. My trunk is upstairs and packed. The Hogwarts term is not for another two weeks, but I’m going on a trip with Draco and Blaise to watch the World Cup and spend time in one of the Malfoy’s manors on the English countryside. I had been looking forward to this all summer, and I was ready to get out of my house and be with my friends. “Good, I expect it will be a good game. Who do we want to win?”

I grin at this as he smiles one of his rare, true smiles. “Go Bulgaria.”

Father dismisses me from the room as he calls over the squib to clean the shattered statue. I leave the room, my clothes clinging to me because of the sweat. When father and I train like this, I often wear black drawstring pants and a linen shirt that lets me breathe. I always braid my hair, keeping it out of my face.

The house is quiet as I walk up the stairs. I head for my room when I hear my mother call me from her bedroom. The door is cracked ever so slightly at the very end of the hall, a single sliver of light in the dark hall. I hesitate before deciding it is worse to pretend I don’t hear her.

Pushing the door open lightly, I slip into the room.

It is dark, the shades on the windows drawn. The room smells heavily of sage. My mother is sitting in front of her mirror, a velvet robe swallowing her frame in crimson waves of fur. Her hair is piled on top of her head and she turns to look at me, blue eyes dark. My mother is beautiful, though I do not look much like her. Her eyes and hair are all I own from her. And my shape.

“You are prepared for your trip?”

She looks away from me and watches me in her mirror instead. She reaches and picks up a vile of something I’m unfamiliar with before dabbing it on her collarbones. “Yes ma’am,” I answer clearly and nod my head. “All of my things are packed and my trunks are ready to be moved.”

She nods ones, dark hair coming lose from her clip. “Be aware that things can happen at the World Cup,” she mused. I try not to frown in confusion. “There are a lot of people that attend… things that could happen.” Her eyes find mine again. “Big crowds are the opportune moments for groups of people to send messages.”

Though I do not know what this means, I nod my head. “Yes ma’am.”

“You are only going with the Malfoy and Zabini boy?” I nod my head again. “Are you with one of them?”

“Pardon?” I ask her, my clear voice breaking slightly. “As in am I dating one of them?”

She waves her hand. “Dating, sleeping with, in love with. It all becomes the same thing, in the end.”

“No,” I answer quickly, my mind reeling. “Draco and Blaise are my friends. We would never- I would never-"

Mother stands and cuts me off. She turns around and turns her steely gaze to me, crossing her arms over her chest to examine me. “You’re a beautiful girl, Eleanor. How could you not be, coming where you come from? You’ve got my eyes and hair and your fathers sharp features. Surely a girl with all of that going for her has boys lining up to date her?”

“I don’t…” I open and close my mouth because mother and I have never discussed this. I don’t know what the right answer is, and that’s how I always speak to her. I always answer with the right answer, whether it’s something I believe in or not. “I don’t often know. I focus on my studies and quidditch, and sending home my reports to you and father…”

Mother’s lip twitches. “The men in this world will never see how smart you are.” There is a tone to my mother’s voice that I have never heard before, and I do not know how I’m meant to respond. She sounds rueful, resentful. I have never heard mother resentful. “You can best them all in the dark arts and potions, but they will see you for what you are.”

She stops. I venture to prompt her. “Which is what, may I ask?”

“A pretty little face.” Mother shrugs then and turns away from me, done with the conversation. “Boys like your smile, Eleanor. Not your brain.”

I close the bedroom door behind me, thinking about my mother’s words. Though I would never tell her, I think that she is wrong. Because Draco has never said anything about what I look like for as long as I had known him. All he ever talked about was how smart I was.

Mother doesn’t know anything.

- - -

The next day, I am thankful to depart. Mother vanished after our conversation and hasn’t returned since. I do not miss her. In fact, in the days of her absence, I flourish. When the squib puts my bags in front of the fireplace, anticipation sets in. I’m traveling by Floo to Draco’s manor, and I cannot wait to get there.

Father is not there to wish me a safe trip. I look at the time on the wall and decide that it is time for me to leave. Grabbing my things and hauling them into the tidy space we have for our Floo network, I grab a handful of Floo powder. It’s fine and runs between my fingers, time in an hourglass.

Clearing my throat, I throw the Floo powder and say, “Malfoy Manor.”

In a moment, my world is green. The fire is never hot, though it is a variation of warm. I feel the pull of transportation and I smell the strange, burning smell that comes along with Floo travel. In moments I am in the Malfoy Manor, in the large study room that is covered in fine carpets and contains books darker than any of the cracked tomes at school.

Draco is already there. He looks up at me and smiles from his lazy posture. His lanky body is draped on his black, velvet chaise. He looks like a cat as he yawns and peels himself from the furniture, smooth and confident. His blonde hair is slicked back as is his style, and he’s in a dark turtleneck and darker pants.

“Did you bring enough luggage, Blackburn?”

I smile and step out of the fire into his open arms. He wraps his arms around me and I close my eyes. After the entire summer vacation at my manor, I am finally home. He is warmer than any fire I know, and he smells of spearmint and something darker.

“I have to contend with you,” I say lightly. We pull apart and he looks down at me, smiling all the while. Even though I’ve grown taller over the years, Draco has every amount of height over me. He has shot up to an easy six foot something, and his shoulders are slightly broader with age. “You pack everything, you git.”

“Tilly!” Draco barks, looking over his shoulder. The smile turns to a sneer as a house elf scurries into the room and bows low. Her sheet is falling off of her shoulder and it’s covered in stains that I cannot begin to guess are a result of. “Take Miss Blackburn’s things to her room. Is lunch ready?”

“Yes, Master Malfoy.”

Draco looks away from the wretched creature to me. He looks me up and down before his lips pull into a smirk and he gestures with his head. “You’ve come just in time for lunch. Zabini will be here in the morning.”

“A whole day of Draco to myself?” I tease, following him as he pulls me by the hand. We leave my things for the elf to deal with. He leads me through his house, which I’ve only been to once before. It is much larger than ours, and the colors are darker. “How did I get this most prestigious honor?”

“By being Eleanor Blackburn, of course. The girl who snaps her fingers and gets whatever she wants.”

“That simply isn’t true.”

We enter the back yard. The sun is shinning, which is unusual for the time of year. I’m thankful that it warms my face as he leads us to a table set up in the gardens. My stomach rumbles at the smell of tarts, sandwiches and about a million other things Draco seems to have requested.

There are two seats and he pulls my seat out for me. I grin and poke him in the stomach, to which he rolls his eyes as I sit. The table is indeed filled with at least ten different things I am dying to get my hands on. It takes me a few moments to realize that every single thing on the table is a selection of my favorite food.

With an open mouth, I begin to grin before look at his smirking expression across the table from me. The peacocks in his yard squawk but I hardly look at them. They have been spelled to keep their distance, since Draco often gets bit by the colorful birds.

“You were saying?” he prompted, arching a brow. “You don’t get whatever you want? I spy a few of your favorite things. Lemon tarts, rose macaroons, cucumber sandwiches and panino barese.”

I put my chin on my hand, chuckling at him over the table. “Did you really have them make all of my favorite things?”

“I did.”

“What am I going to do with you, Draco Malfoy?”

His grin spreads wider. “I ask myself that every day, Eleanor Blackburn.”
♠ ♠ ♠
Seraphine Blackburn
Anaximander Blackburn

Eleanor is different from Seraphine. Her brilliance will be noted.

-N