Chapter Text
When I close my eyes I’m not myself,
I look in the mirror and see someone else
When I close my eyes, my eyes see two:
My brother, my brother, and I and you
I see the stars, the waves,
Feel the poison running through your veins
Then I see it, the moment I become you—
I want it to be different, to run or to hide,
To do anything but to fall to the tides;
But I know I can’t be, know we won’t
Because while you were warned, I was cursed;
Forced to relive all your horrible days in my dreams,
Days you first saw in your sleep
God, this is all such dramatic irony…
This impossible paradox that our family wrought,
Surely this makes the souls laugh at us down in hell;
I bet they call it something funny, like a study
A study in drowning
— the tragedy of the little king
“No!” Leo cries, standing up and pushing out of his seat, an abandoned newspaper left on the table—not forgotten but ignored. He shocks not only himself but clearly his family with his own backbone, if his father’s momentary silence, his mother’s hand to her mouth, and the way his brother's fork clatters back onto the porcelain plate is any indication. Normally he was “soft” as Draco put it, rolling over to his parents demands like last year. Not again. He refused to back down.
“I merely suggested it would not be… prudent for you to begin Hogwarts this year, what with the… escapee.” His father’s voice is like a polished blade: smooth yet sharp. It is calm, impossibly composed. With his words, it is easy to forget he loves nothing but his reputation—maybe his wife, who he fears to some degree, or his son, built in his image and admiration clear. Not Leo, never him given his shameful behavior of not being a magical racist. Oh, how dreadful.
“Last year it was the dangers of being petrified, and my less than masterful control. At this rate, should I wait another year, the Triwizard Tournament will be reinstated!” That was a nice way of putting it. Leo has always disliked his father’s cruel words to kind, Muggleborn, Uncle Ted; but he was his father, and Leo foolishly believed it was fine.
You will not begin at Hogwarts this year. I will not allow my son’s petrification to reveal his unfortunate alliance as a blood traitor. You will be homeschooled, you will practice your metamorph abilities so you will not tarnish the family name with reminders of long dead Death Eaters, and do not cry. You are a Malfoy, you will stand proud. You will do as I say, and next year you may join your brother.
He takes a deep breath, his resolve already crumbling. Perhaps Draco is right, perhaps he is a soft idiot. “Please,” he tries to appeal to his mother instead of his father, heart of ice and face of stone. “I’m already going to be the oldest in my year now. Next year I won’t even be able to go into first year!”
“Control yourself, Leonis.” Leo hides his flinch, but if Draco’s eyes burning into him say anything it’s that it wasn’t hidden well enough. Only one person called him that, and he was dead. Leo reaches, nearly subconsciously, for the ring on a chain under his shirt. It’s something his father would prefer Draco have, but the Black Heirship is his , and his father can't do anything to change that. “Perhaps you could attend Beauxbatons if you so desire public schooling as opposed to a home education. I am aware your mother has ensured you learned French?”
“ Oui ,” he says on instinct, if he were braver, he would glare, protest. But he is not his brother, and cannot afford to throw a fit to get what he wants. “ Please ,” he says, sounding dangerously close to begging. “S ’il te plaît, Maman ,” he clarifies, using French always made her eyes go softer. “ Laisse-moi partir et je te promets que je serai sage. Une chance, je t'en prie! ” Please mum, let me go and I promise I’ll be good. A chance, I beg of you!
He makes a point to drop any subconscious morph he might have taken up—his brother’s hairstyle, his mother’s coloring, his father’s eyes. It doesn’t happen often, for as much as he hates it, hates that he looks as he does, a constant reminder of his fate, a constant reminder that he will die by seventeen, he likes who he is. Still, it’s a sign of his lack of control, or perhaps his internal struggle to be less like his first cousin once removed.
No matter what they say, he is not Regulus Black. Will never be Regulus Black. He is just uncannily like him: destined to become his very image. Internally, not for the first time, he despises his family. He’d give up his magic and like in the muggle world full time if it meant he could be rid of Capella Black’s blood curse.
He remembers reading about it, being told the story hesitantly. The one good thing for his homeschooling last year was the freedom and sympathy it gifted him. So, he learned:
Once upon a time, there was a mother who had two sons. While she loved them both very much, her favorite was undeniably her youngest. He was taken from her too soon, however, and because she was a very powerful witch, she devised a ritual to bring his soul back to this plane.
She tied it to her family magic to both give her strength, and save any other descendants from the same cruel fate. But cheating death is tricky business, and it often goes awry in unexpected ways.
In a sense, his soul’s essence came back, born anew, but it was not her son truly. The renewed child was forced to relive the same specific moments that made the original who he was, and in the few times it occurred since, they always mirrored their doppelgänger to some degree.
The reborn child was his own person, but not. Plagued by nightmares of the past and unable to live truly. In the end, he died just like his relative did. They all did, and Leo knows he will too.
That is why, by the time the story was written down, it was labeled clearly as a curse. A truly unfortunate blood curse that wasn’t just a counter to powerful abilities or inbreeding. But the witch tied it to her bloodline, remember? No one ever figured out how to undo it, and so every time the circumstances are met, the next generation has to pay.
Leo learned a lot from that, but most of all he remembers this: Careful now, and let this be a lesson in life: you cannot defy fate, you cannot cheat death; and, too, don't forget: We're all stars, but sometimes there are black holes.
It’s sad but true that this is what gives him the strength to continue. Because Regulus went to Hogwarts, even if he didn’t make it to graduation (Leo also tries to not think too hard about that). While he knows the little things don’t have to match, Hogwarts is big, big enough that he has to go. Two years after his own brother, just like he did. Leo didn’t realize that until after, but that gives him hope.
(Leo glances at the newspaper on the table, the haphazardly screwing of it does nothing to hide the deranged face of Sirius Black and the words escaped from Azkaban. )
“You’re sure your morph will hold?” His mother asks after a moment. “You’re sure you’ll be okay?”
“Yes,” he says, barely concealing his excitement. He shifts his hair to the spun-gold color of the Rosiers, same as his mother, and his face becomes a version of Draco that’s quite literally softer, his brother’s sharp features dulled on him. For a moment, he thinks of keeping his eyes grey in an act of defiance that he can back up, but still, he changes them to the icy blue to the Malfoy’s. Of his father. It’s a carefully chosen appearance that will leave him unnoticeable to a keen eye. His face, similar to his brother, his defining features swapped with him: Draco’s hair is the platinum-white-blond of the Malfoy’s with a Black’s eyes. Now, this false face he wears is possibly the closest to his own might have been (and yet, he hates it more. Because to him, his face is not Regulus’ but his own, and it is cruel and unfair that he must change it but like if not just. One must adapt.)
“I’m in control. And besides, I’ll have Dray.” He doubts that as much as he hopes, but Draco grins at him encouragingly.
There is a second when he thinks that despite it all he is wrong, that perhaps Hogwarts is not nearly such an important life point, that he will never go. He is fluent in French after all. (It is telling how Father wanted Draco to go to Durmstrang—known for its Dark Arts curriculum—despite his brother’s inability to speak any Slavic languages that are spoken there—though maybe he could, Draco always did get extra lessons when he was gone. Leo is embarrassed to say he didn’t actually know—, and yet he chooses Beauxbatons for his second, spare, least favored son. It’s okay, Leo prefers Beauxbatons anyway given that he would at least understand the curriculum. But Hogwarts is what he wants most of all).
Then, as he always has known, it finally comes:
“You will begin at Hogwarts come autumn.”
“You should practice now, Leo,” his father’s voice is light in a way that is false. “If you wish to prove that you are truly ready. Prove to your mother as well.” He is smart, Leo can admit that. He knows that Leo can’t hold it for too long before it depletes his magical core, forcing him to pass out from exhaustion. He knows that that is just enough to convince his mother, Narcissa, he is better at home, hidden away like a dirty secret.
A part of him, perhaps a tad bit masochistic, likes that his father hates him for not cursing Dora as Draco does. It’s a difference, however small: Regulus was the good son first.
“Yes, Father,” he says, not because he let his pride blind him like Draco does, but because his fight left him when he won, and now he must not jeopardize his chance. That, and he cannot bring himself to defy his father too much, cannot challenge him like Draco would.
Draco, from his place beside him, looks away in disgust as he morphs. It isn’t ugly, so much as disconcerting, as it twists and shifts night-black to gold-blond; and stormy, watery grey into cold, icy blue. “Dray,” he says, using the childish nickname on purpose. “I need to look at your face, for reference, please.” He flushes, and hates himself for showing it because he doesn’t technically have to. But Leo’s tired.
“What’s Nymphadora even teaching you?” He grumbles, but acquiesces. He calls their cousin the name she hates the most to make sure that she—and everyone in the vicinity—knows his disdain and how he yearns to be far away from her and her ‘dirty blood’. Preferably, he’d never even know her, but it’s for Leo that he has to interact with her, and despite his schemes to get them to be closer (the Great Pie Debacle of ’89 never to be spoken of again), they both have stubbornly refused to yield. Draco with his bigotry, and Dora with her (reasonable) reluctance to speak with an ‘arrogant, prejudiced child with no regard whatsoever for his own stupidity’.
“You can do better, Lamb.” Leo grimaces at the nickname. A few years back, he’d needed a name that wasn’t ‘Malfoy’ to hang around the Tonks family in public for various reasons. His Aunt Andy had come up with ‘Aries Narcissus Tonks’, and while he had originally planned to play her son, it made more sense (as so to not deal with the “why was he never mentioned like literally ever” questions) if he played up the ‘Muggleborn cousin on Uncle Ted’s side’ angle instead. Of course, the Wizarding name wouldn’t do, so Dora had suggested ‘Ant’ short for ‘Anthony’ to acknowledge the initials of the other. Draco, when he heard this, wasn’t to be outdone, and came up with the antithesis of ‘Ant’ in ‘Lamb’—or, Leonis Andee Malfoy-Black.
Leo, while he was too much of a pushover to stop him, hated the implications that it came with: lamb to the slaughter, weak, baby sheep soon to flock to his master, etc. mostly he hated it because it was unnervingly accurate. Still, ‘Lamb’ with all its connotations made perfect sense to be associated with the ‘poor sickly younger Malfoy’ that his parents presented to the public so he could dip out of Galas when he was younger, before he could control his abilities. So perfect, in fact, that the borderline-cruel nickname was tolerated by their father, despite it being nonsensical and childish. Or, could it even be cruel if it was true?
“Mm,” Leo says noncommittally, taking the easy way out and not commenting as he took in his brother’s sharp features under his father’s harsh gaze. He copies them, accurately if Draco’s creeped out face says anything, and then softens them, perhaps adding a bit more baby fat seeing as Draco is thirteen and far from a first year. He’d practiced for days to get the feeling down so he didn’t need a mirror, and his indulgence with using not just a faded memory made the muscle memory easier to recall.
“Ready, Father,” Leo says, fully aware that the five minutes were far too long to have taken. Lucius Malfoy doesn't deem that with a reply, simply giving him a once over to make sure he’s properly Pureblood Spare material—icy-blue Acromantula silk robes that bring out not-his eyes and accentuate their wealth seems to have made the cut.
“Draco,” Father says. “Make sure your brother does not… embarrass himself.” He clearly means the family, but Leo can appreciate the value of family. He loves Maman, and Dray, and Dora and Aunt Andy and Uncle Ted, and stubbornly he still loves father too. It’s okay, really. The sting is a reward in and of itself. My cousin Regulus was always thought of as the good child… quiet, obedient… so unlike his brother… his brother, the escapee. Right.
“Will Sirius Black be able to find us?” Leo whispers to his brother, feeling foolish and young. “In Diagon?”
“What, scared, Lamb? It’s okay, big brother will protect you. ’Sides, he wouldn’t hurt us. We hate Mudbloods and their ilk just as much as he does.” It’s not ‘we’re family’ that first comes out, no, but a slur. Still, Leo is silent, because he is afraid, and yearns for comfort. Draco would protect him, and that’s all he needs to hear.
“I don’t,” he says quietly, to release the guilt that builds up inside him. Uncle Ted is twice the wizard most Purebloods are, is what he’s too cowardly to say.
“Come now, children,” Father says, looking at him. “I haven’t all day.”
“Sorry, father.” He touches his arm, and in a rush of vertigo they are gone with a final loud CRACK! of Apparation.
They apparate into the predetermined Apparation-area that Purebloods—technically it’s for anyone willing to spend the extra Galleons, but it’s an unspoken rule that it is only for the so-called ‘Elite’—can pay for in Diagon. Because of course, the Leaky Cauldron is too good for his father.
“I have business to attend to,” his father says. While he was too smart to admit it aloud, last year’s raids were likely to only increase with Sirius Black’s escape and now he was likely planning on getting rid of anything he didn’t last year, before Aurors came knocking down the door to see if the convict had taken refuge with his estranged cousin and found dark artifacts instead. Draco, it seems, had caught that too.
“Can I come, Father?” He said excitedly. “Lamb can find his own way, and it’ll be good for his independence.”
Lucius smirks. “If your brother doesn’t do anything to tarnish the family name, I could be… interested in company.” A guilt trip, then, to ensure it. A deal, if you will, with the devil: be a good little Pureblood and make your brother happy, get a good report back to mother, and go off on your own to get supplies for Hogwarts. Leo takes one look at his brother’s eyes—grey like his own, wide and pleading to go on pretending to be grown up. It’s pathetic, and he knows the moment he runs into friends doing the same he’ll lose interest, but his father’s approval means more to Draco than himself.
And Leo will always be a good brother. Draco will always abandon him—for his friends, because of his family… And Leo will be there, watching, waiting to pick up the pieces. It’s a tale as old as time, history already repeating like through a warped funhouse mirror. It’s funny, until it’s not.
“Okay,” Leo agrees, his guilty conscience singing. “I will.”
The first shop is narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. A single wand lies on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window. A tinkling bell rings somewhere in the depths of the shop as he steps inside. It is a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair in the corner.
Leo knows why he walks into Ollivander’s first. It’s because he has books at home and supplies he needs already there too. Really, it’s the only reason he had to come. It’s that, those reasonable explanations, too; but partly because he wants to know what his wants will say about him—and his not-his future.
It’s empty, the shop, slightly dusty and filled with magic. There are boxes neatly on the bookcases around the room, stacked high up to the ceiling, and inside he knows what he will find. He’s the only one there—no other first years in search of a wand, no older Wixen in need of repairs, just him. It feels oddly alien, for he has hardly truly been alone, out in the world like this. No supervision or watchful eye. If he wanted, tired as he was, to close his eyes and let the morph drop —
NO. Something in him screamed, some subconscious part that sounded like his father, perhaps the ever so many lectures on how to not drop it under any circumstances paid off . He would not only break his promise, but risk it all. “Hello?” He spoke instead.
There’s a moment, moment s , really, when all is silent, and Leo feels silly. No one was here, clearly, so why did he speak? Still, he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding when out of the back pops out a man.
The first thing he notices are his eyes: pale and silvery, they haunt him more than Regulus himself. “Ah,” he says in a voice so soft he must be dreaming. “Good morning. I thought you would have come last year, Mr Malfoy, but it is no bother.”
Leo shivers. How could he know that? His Occlumency shields had picked up no attempts at Legimency, and even so, he wouldn’t get past. Still, maybe his morph bares a strong enough resemblance that he made a reasonable guess.
( He knows how. Deep down, he looks into the silver eyes and remembers how Regulus was a Seer—a Clairvoyant specifically. Able to see past, present, and future through visions and impossible insights. Different from Oracles who sprout prophecies, but able to instinctively know things he shouldn’t. Leo isn’t one, as he is cursed and blessed differently, but maybe, perhaps— )
“Hold out your wand hand.” It’s a tricky thing, as he was born left-handed but trained out of the natural tendency by his father’s tutors, and now uses the right. He can still use his left, and because it is natural that may be better. Still, right is what his father would expect from a good son.
He hates it, wishes he could say that in an act of simple defiance he offers his left, but no, he is not that son.
Leo holds out his right.
As the magical tape-measure goes all over, Ollivander makes small talk in the way he was told he would, and not. He knows from Draco that he should expect the man to tell him of his mother’s wand, his father’s wand, and mayhaps his brother's wand too. That is why he is so blind sighted, especially when he looks at those silvery eyes and knows he should’ve expected it.
“It seems only yesterday that I was with your cousin, Regulus.” He begins. “He was alone, just like you; his brother having run off with his friends and his mother off to tea, not willing to bother with her youngest. The young mister Black… ah yes, his wand was silver lime I believe, with phoenix feather core—phoenix feathers are capable of the greatest range of magic, though they may take longer than either unicorn or dragon cores to reveal this. It was, I believe, eleven inches. It seemed to be quite unyielding in the heat, and yet once it thawed it revealed to be actually quite supple. Now, what will it be for you?”
Leo pushes the new information aside as the measurements wrapped up. He had heard stories, of course. Knew it would take a dozen or so, before the older wizard got a hint and handed him the right one. So really, he did not expect when Ollivander opens his mouth with a sly smile. “I know just which wand is for you. You see, the phoenix which helped make young Regulus’ wand gave her tail feather, she gave only one other—now where did I put that? Ah, yes… here, try this.”
The wand he estimates to be about eleven inches, and already knows is unicorn hair. “The wood?” He asks in fear as he gives it a wave and star-like sparks go up. A match on the first try. It seemed like fate.
“Willow,” he says and Leo nearly cries at the sole difference. “Their ideal owner often had some—usually unwarranted—insecurity, however well they might try and hide it.” His insecurity isn’t so unwarranted, seeing as he is legitimately cursed to die, but Leo doesn’t argue, instead simply paying the owed Galleons and leaving him and his creepy silver eyes behind.
Of all people, how had he known to compare him to Regulus?
The wand he had been so excited for felt awkward in his hand, and heavy in his pocket. So much for his bright future. Leo almost cackles, but stops himself before he looks as mad as Sirius Black.
He really, truly hates Capella’s Curse.
Leo meets up with Father at the Apparition point as soon as he’s done with his shopping. He’s unceremoniously shoved his long-awaited wand into a compartment of his trunk, which he carries in his pocket filled with his books and other items and has under a feather-light charm and shrinking charm.
“How kind of you to finally join us, Leonis.” Father says and Leo withholds a wince at that name. His grandfather Arcturus (who technically is more like a great-uncle or something, but it was simpler to not specify) called him that during their Occlumency lessons, called him that as he gave him the remade Heir ring.
Thank you father, he thinks, but doesn’t dare say such insolence. “My apologies,” he responds instead, as ‘I’m sorry’ was considered insincere and improper.
“Where’s Draco?” He can’t help but ask, despite knowing the answer.
“With friends,” says Father. “Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson—the right sort of crowd.” Yes, he gets the hint. Yes, he will likely follow the implications. No, he doesn’t want to.
“Oh,” he says. “Okay.”
“Don’t mumble, Leonis, it’s unbecoming.”
“Yes, father.”
Leo hates how he speaks up at that, straightening his spine and ensuring his hair is still perfectly coiffed. Leo hates that no matter how horrible his father is, how he belittles him and his friends and his family and his beliefs, how he is cruel and unkind, he doesn’t despise him.
Quite the opposite, in fact. He is good to Draco, for he is good, and he can be nicer to him too when he meets his expectations. And god, does he want to sometimes. It’s painful how he wants to play all sides at once to the point he loses who he is himself. He loves Auntie Andy and Uncle Ted and Cousin Dora and the freedom and joy he gets when he’s just Ant Tonks.
But Lucius is his father.
He is his father, and all he wants is to be praised, to be recognized. He knows he will do things he wouldn’t do by choice just to get that acknowledgment.
Lucius Malfoy is his father and Leo Malfoy loves him.
“You were… acceptable, today, Leo.” He says later, when he’s gotten the report from whatever spies he’s gotten—whether be invisible house-elves, bribed shopkeepers, or both—and Leo hates it, knows that it’s just manipulation, but—
Leo smiles anyway.
“Thank you, Father.”
Leo’s packing his trunk. It’s not far from September 1st, being late August, and he’s packing his trunk.
Draco’s off with some friends, having already packed (not that he would have been lowered to do it himself), and Leo’s packing. It’s calming, in a way, to make sure he has everything and any contraband and wouldn’t be reported. Besides, he doesn’t want to overwhelm the elves, Dobby was always so stressed and anxious. Leo misses him, he thinks. Dobby was always good to him, as the only one who treated him with kindness.
So, he packs.
Or doesn’t pack, more like.
Leo looks out his window at the manor grounds. Sprawling fields and Maman’s flowerbeds, a beautiful pool of crystal-clear water is visible, so perfect that it causes him to shiver. It’s sunny out, and in his reflection, in the glass of a half opened window, he sees himself—or, he supposes, perhaps he sees Regulus. That’s his face first, after all.
It is delicate and pale like porcelain, grey eyes like two deep storms filled with heavy storm clouds. His hair is black like the night sky, wavy like ripples in water.
He shifts.
Now it is how he will look for the next year: slightly tanned so as to not look so fake—like a doll, or a corpse, or, no, a ghost. His hair is blond, golden and sun-kissed like his mother’s, and his eyes are the icy blue of the Malfoy’s—of his Father.
He changes again, this time to a tan from playing outside, messy brown hair, and grey eyes, the splitting image of a young Ted Tonks from memory—save for his grey eyes, which he inexplicably keeps, despite it being reckless. Uncle Ted had blue. It’s the face Ant wears, closer than the one Lamb (for that is what he decides to call his Perfect-Pureblood-Spare false face) adorns; but neither are he.
He’s just Leo.
He places a muggle ball-point pen hidden inside tailored dress robes, and wonders where the line begins, ends and meets.
He is just Leo—to no one but himself.
He shifts back to his true form, and in the wind, the breeze, the very air and magic surrounding him, he swears he hears a voice, young and loud and laughing.
C’mon, stop hiding and come out to play!
He turns slightly, knowing it isn’t Draco but who else but his brother? No one is there, of course, but him, Leo, and so he slams the window closed with fear in his shaky hands.
He is Leo, he knows that, but maybe, just maybe, he was once—
Regulus!