Chapter 5 - Runs in the Family
Draco set his toast down. From his shimmering eyes and jerky movements, Luna could tell he was having a hard time hiding his excitement. “You’re ready? So soon?”
Luna shrugged, mentally pushing the news into the back of her mind. “Of course,” she replied briskly. “The sooner I finish, the sooner I leave.”
Draco grinned, “Am I that scary, Luna?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” Luna held out a hand expectantly after she pushed away her uneaten toast. “I’ll need quills, ink, and parchment.”
Draco laughed hollowly. “I still can’t believe how much you’ve changed, Loony Luna. But, I’m at your command.” He shook his head. “Let’see… Quick-Quotes or Self-Inking?” Draco’s smile froze when his sharp eyes caught Luna’s flinch. Before he could utter a word of apology, the weakness in Luna’s eyes disappeared and the hardened Luna he’d become accustomed to reappeared.
“Skeeter’s a name of shame among journalists. And those Weasleys couldn’t help themselves let alone the world of writing,” Luna muttered. “A regular eagle-feather quill will be sufficient.”
Draco nodded humbly. “Very well.” He took out a wand and said clearly, “Accio stationary.”
Luna opened her mouth incredulously. “That’s my wand, Malfoy!”
Draco smiled thinly. “I don’t have mine, Luna, for a reason you’ll learn later. So you’ll excuse me for using yours. Ah, here come your supplies.”
Luna turned her head just in time to see a wooden box fly by and land before her. The box, from a distance, had seemed simple. Now, up close, she admired the beautiful carvings along the sides and top of the box. The patterns, she realized, were not dissimilar to the ones she found on her covers this morning. She grimaced slightly when she spotted the fancy ‘Malfoy’ carved so carefully into the lid.
“It was my father’s and his before him,” Draco explained as if it were an apology. “Handed down from father to son through the centuries.” He smiled mirthlessly. “Now it’s mine by default.”
Luna finally brought herself to open the box. The wedges formed by the green felt that lined the insides of the box fitted around two quills, a bottle of ink, and a roll of parchment. Luna emptied the box of its contents, but just before she closed the box, Luna caught a glimpse of a complete set of supplies replenished.
Before Luna was able to unroll the parchment, Draco began his tale. “My father, Lucius Malfoy, carried on the great Malfoy legacy. He was the epitome of Slytherin: Pureblood, strong, powerful, rich. You’re not unfamiliar with his characteristics, are you, Luna?” Without waiting for a reply, Draco continued, “This characterization of Malfoys was the building block of our estate and was the only thing that kept my family together.” Draco waved his hand lazily. “Take it all away, and you leave…nothing.”
Draco was silent for a long moment, causing Luna to look up hesitantly, hoping against all hope that Draco had decided to “
“My father treated my mother, Narcissa Black,” Bollocks, Luna thought as Draco continued, “like someone, something beneath him, even though she was another Pureblood, like him. He wasn’t physically cruel to her “ no, he couldn’t afford to lose her as his companion. He knew my mother had alliances, powerful ones at that, all of whom he couldn’t have turn against him.
“My father saw how dedicated to him, to his dream, my mother was. He used that. However, despite her strong love, I suppose that’s what you can call it, for him, he was secretly afraid that my mother would come to love something else even more than his dream.”
“Why was your father so afraid of losing Narcissa?” Luna blurted out as she paused in her furious scribbling. Silently she cursed herself for her journalistic instincts.
“My mother had to be what my father always wanted a woman “ a wife “ to be: a perfect image. She had to support my father by standing by his every decision, every appearance, every downfall. Just her blood did almost everything to help my father’s reputation. Then she carried the Pureblood baby of his to continue the Malfoy line. But she was superficial.” Draco looked away. “She could never have provided my father more than the image expected of her, a reason why I’m glad she died along with him. She wouldn’t have been able to survive long by herself. She would’ve been alone, desolate…lost.”
Luna glanced up from her writing when Draco stopped speaking a second time. The loss in his eyes as he stared at his own palms awakened a deep sympathy toward him she never thought she’d be able to feel. She realized how hard it had been for him to speak out, to reveal the nature of the his family, to look past a mother’s love and a father’s hurt. It hit her hard: she didn’t know who this man before her was. “Malfoy?” she broke the silence. When he didn’t respond, Luna pressed on, “Did they know you were alive? Did they know where you were?”
Her words brought Draco back to the present, away from the agonizing memories that still tormented him. “No,” he replied heavily. “The only news they’d heard from me was from Snape when he was caught. I didn’t dare send them any messages, not after Weasley’s decree. My father had already incriminated himself that night he broke out of Azkaban for the last battle. But my mother,” Draco shook his blond head again, “there was no evidence linking her to Death Eater activities apart from her damn family.” Draco banged a fist on the table hard enough to make the dishes (and Luna) jump.
Luna eyed Draco warily as he took a deep breath to calm himself. “Sorry,” he mumbled after he’d collected himself. He turned his head away almost shamefully. “When I was growing up,” Draco continued forcefully, “my father would go away for long periods of time. Business with the Ministry, you know. He would leave behind my mother and I in the estate alone save for the few house-elves. It was during those times where I’d learn more about the human my mother was.
“I used to strive to prove to her how strong, how much of a man I was. I would quell her fears, check her closets for night-bogeys, destroy the monsters in her mind, and become the boy she’d dreamt I’d become. At first she had her guard up “ she regarded me, I think, as a possession of my father’s and not entirely hers to love. Gradually, though, she let her guard down and came to love me not as a son of a Malfoy but as a son of Narcissa as well. Soon, I became the one thing my father was afraid of: an object that can take away from Narcissa’s dedication to himself.
“So he began meeting me in the library to force the ideology of the Malfoys, and more, into my mind. He passed to me the teachings given to him by his parents, by his friends, and finally by Voldemort himself. He told me over and over again, ‘Though the Dark Lord may be gone, we must keep his ideas, his lessons alive and close to us. Never forget them.’ On top of those lessons, my father would tell me repeatedly, ‘You’re worthless until you’ve proven your loyalty to the teachings of the Dark Lord. You’re nothing unless you’ve felt the fear and control the Dark Lord has over you. Unless you’ve killed a Mudblood and enjoyed the power you have. Unless you’ve tortured a Muggle and delighted in his spineless screams. So, Draco, you’re worthless. You’re nothing. You’re better off dead.’”
The colour in Draco’s cheeks drained away as his voice became barely a whisper. “I came to believe that. ‘My father won’t love until I’ve gotten blood on my hands. I am just a speck until I get that snake on my forearm.’ These thoughts ran through my head as I grew up and screeched in my ear the moment I saw Harry Potter, the damn Boy Who Lived. I knew who he was,” Draco spat through gritted teeth. “Who didn’t? After all, my father had damned him to an eternity of hells a thousand times over. So when I met him, I knew instantly what I had to do. It was a chance, my chance, to finally force my father to look at me with love. To right the wrongs I did just by passing through my mother’s birth channel. To live up to the blood that ran through my veins.
“I wasn’t foolish enough to believe I could kill Harry Potter on my own. Even with those goons Crabbe and Goyle and with my vast knowledge of the Dark Arts, we were in Hogwarts under the constant eye of Albus Dumbledore. But I knew I could do the next best thing: make Harry Potter fear the Dark Lord the way we did. Humiliate him until he wished he were never born. Treat him like scum the way he’d forced the other Death Eaters to be treated.” Soon, Draco’s voice lost his softness as he became engulfed in his memories and emotions.
Luna paused in her writings. “This didn’t just stop in first year.”
Draco smiled almost nostalgically. “No. Isn’t it amazing how dedicated a son can be to his father, how important it is for him to be accepted by family?” Draco shook his head, whether in shame or in bewilderment, Luna couldn’t tell. “I continued my torture of Harry and his friends even though I failed miserably. Then in my sixth year-“
Luna stood up abruptly. Not now, her mind told her. She wasn’t ready to hear this part just yet. “Malfoy, I’m a bit tired.” She looked down at her roll of parchment. “I have enough to write a good beginning.”
Draco looked up startled, shaken from his remembrances. “But we just started,” he said baffled.
Luna was already on her way out. “Sorry Malfoy,” she mumbled before making her way to her room, back to where she started.
End notes: This chapter follows as closely to canon as my knowledge of the Harry Potter universe as of July 19, 2006 allows. Any information revealed to be false by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will not be changed.
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