Deep within the heart of an untouched forest, hidden from the world inside a shadowed cave, sat a rishi.
He was known across realms for a temper as fearsome as Sage Durvasa himself, whose wrath was etched into countless mythological tales. Yet now, he was utterly still—meditating beneath the sprawling roots of an ancient banyan tree. A waterfall thundered softly behind him, its constant rhythm blending with the forest's breath.
His hair was long and matted, his beard untrimmed and wild. He sat in padmāsana, spine straight as a spear driven into the earth, hands resting one atop the other.By all appearances, he looked as though he had not eaten in months—skin drawn tight, ribs faintly visible beneath ash-smeared flesh—but the aura surrounding him told a very different story.
It was impossible to ignore.
It was purity and destruction entwined—something sacred, yet burning fiercer than the fires of Agni Deva himself. Even the most ignorant soul would have felt it and known: this was not an ordinary being.
Slowly, the rishi opened his eyes.
They were a deep, endless black—untouched by exhaustion, sharp with awareness, as though he had awakened from the most restful sleep. In their depths lay secrets of the cosmos, truths written before time itself. There was something unsettling about him, as though his soul did not belong to the body it wore.
But then again—what was a body, if not a garment the soul discarded when its purpose was fulfilled?
His lips curved ever so slightly as he spoke, voice carrying the weight of fate itself.
"எழுதப்பட்ட விதியையும் மாற்ற வல்லது ஒன்றே—ஆன்மாவின் இச்சை."
(The only power capable of defying what is written as fate is the will of the self. One's own resolve is supreme; through it, one may become anything.)
*****
At Hogwarts…
Lucius stood by the edge of the Black Lake, its dark surface unmoving beneath the moonlight. Water had always been his one true refuge. It never asked questions, never judged—only reflected what one chose to show.
Soon, he would begin a family.After all, he was engaged to Narcissa Black.
Was he in love with her? No.But was he satisfied? Content? Yes.
She was a lady of impeccable lineage, composed and intelligent, born of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. In the world Lucius inhabited, there was nothing more desirable than that. Love was an indulgence; stability was power.
He lowered himself onto the grass—something he would never do in the presence of others. Tonight, however, the grounds were empty, and the night was kind enough to keep his secrets. He stared at his pale hands, fingers tightening slightly.
He did not know how to be a good partner.No one had ever taught him.
Lucius Malfoy was excellent at wearing masks—charming, polished, convincing in ways that bordered on dangerous. Like any great conman, he told himself a lie so often that it began to feel like truth.
I do not care about my mother.
It was the greatest lie he had ever believed.
What child did not want their mother?
He would never say it aloud, but the absence of her had hollowed something deep inside him. His father never spoke of her, never allowed her name to exist within the walls of Malfoy Manor. And as Lucius grew older, he understood why. His father had loved her. Truly. And asking about her reopened wounds that had never healed.
So Lucius had stopped asking.
But nights like this—when the future pressed down on him, heavy and unavoidable—he did not know where to place the anger, the disappointment, the quiet jealousy that burned when he saw his peers comforted by mothers who lived and breathed.
Once, long ago, he had asked.
"Tell me, Father… why do you never speak of my mother?" Lucius had said, voice trembling despite himself.
"That, my son," Abraxas replied evenly, "is because she is dead."
"Then show me something," Lucius had insisted. "A photograph—anything. Please. Or did she leave us? Did she—"
He never finished the sentence.
The slap had been sharp, controlled, and devastating. Lucius stumbled back, hitting the floor, his cheek burning. What frightened him most was not the blow—but the restraint behind it. If this was controlled anger, he did not wish to see the rest.
Abraxas knelt before him, eyes cold—so cold they sent a chill through Lucius's bones.
"Let me tell you something, boy," his father whispered, voice low enough to be barely sound at all."The next time you insult my wife—the lady of this house—I will not care that you are my son. I will hurt you."
His gaze hardened further.
"You are lucky that half the blood in your veins is hers."
Then Abraxas stood and walked away.
Lucius never spoke ill of his mother again.
And yet, now—being told he must spend his life bound to another person, another destiny—it terrified him. The unknown. The fragile possibility of loss. The fear of becoming a man who could not protect what mattered.
Tonight, more than ever, he wanted his mother.
And the lake, silent and endless, bore witness to the boy he would never allow the world to see.
*******
But there was something Lucius hid—even from his father.
Flashes of memory.
Fragments that struck without warning: the image of a woman he had once called Amma. Each time they surfaced, he would jolt awake with a sense of longing so sharp, so searing, that it felt physical—like something burning beneath his ribs. It hurt to remember her. It hurt even more to try and forget.
Once, he dreamt of her.
It was not a fleeting vision but a long, vivid dream—so detailed that, at first, he dismissed it as nothing more than a construct of his own yearning. A child's mind creating what it lacked. But slowly, unease crept in.
There were things in the dream he could not explain.
He was speaking to her in a language he did not know—not French, not English, not anything familiar. The woman his mind had supposedly invented was rendered with unnerving precision: the texture of her voice, the warmth of her hands, the way her eyes softened when she looked at him.
And she was nothing like the mother he had imagined.
She was neither English nor French.Merlin—she was not even European.
She looked Asian.
And his father—by Hecate—his father had looked… happy. Truly so. Relaxed, content in a way Lucius had never seen in waking life. As though the world had finally loosened its grip on him.
That was when Lucius stopped dismissing the dream.
He researched the language.
It was Tamil—one of the oldest living languages known to mankind.
From that moment on, a quiet resolve settled into him. He would uncover the truth. With or without his father's help.
Because if those were memories—his memories—then why had they been erased? In the dream, he had been no infant. He had been old enough to speak, to understand, to remember.
Five years old.
Yet everything he had ever been told insisted on one immutable fact:his mother had died when he was still a baby.
And for the first time in his life, Lucius Malfoy began to suspect that the truth had been taken from him—carefully, deliberately—and buried beneath silence.