Chapter 1: A Reluctant Conversation
‘You want me to do what!?’ The voice trembled slightly with barely contained anger, glinting grey eyes meeting their cool counterpart before turning away abruptly and glaring rebelliously at the carpet. He could safely hate the carpet, and if necessary convincingly claim it had offended him in some way. After all, the sickly design that swirled nauseatingly round his feet was quite offensive to anyone forced to look at it for any length of time. The carpet deserved his wrath.
The eyes focused upon him again, tone crisp and highly disapproving. ‘I have made your obligations perfectly clear in the past.’ The voice left no room for argument, and in normal circumstances it would have received none to begin with. ‘I see no reason why you should decide to start raising objections now.’
‘Honestly father, did you think I would take this lying down?’ Draco sneered, but only slightly. It was, after all, still his father. A complete lack of moral outrage would not have gone unnoticed, and would have carried a much higher price in the long run than a single instance of raised volume. But he was pushing the boundaries of reasonable outrage into the rather murky waters of outright disobedience.
‘It is for the good of the family name.’ The words were delivered slowly and smoothly, each one given the weight it rightly deserved as Draco rolled his eyes. ‘It may well be for the very future of the family name, to assure we continue to have one to protect.’
‘But a Mudblood, father,’ Draco spat the word, accompanying it with a number of animated hand gestures aimed to get exactly how he felt about the idea across.
‘It is the only possible solution I can see.’
‘Are you sure you’ve looked?’ The frown he received in reply was enough to answer that question, as it pinned him mercilessly to the spot.
‘Trust me when I say I would leap wholeheartedly upon any possible alternative,’ his father hissed menacingly. ‘Do not think I am unaware of the shame this will bring upon you, and how it will ultimately reflect on both your mother and myself.’ His father’s expression left no doubt that it was his own shame he was more concerned about. ‘However, better a generation or two of disgrace than the end of an entire bloodline.’
Draco looked as though he heartily disagreed with that statement, given his was the generation in question. ‘Even a half-blood would be better. Hell, I’d rather marry Potter.’
‘An act which would automatically lead to the same result we are trying to avoid.’ Lucius cocked an elegant eyebrow. ‘I suppose I should be grateful it is only the bloodline you are objecting too, as opposed to the entire gender.’
‘At this point I am struggling to see how either is better.’
‘We are wizards, Draco, not miracle workers. I assure you that if male pregnancy was possible, some obnoxious woman somewhere would have discovered and exploited it to its full, and probably painful, potential.’
‘So, what, I don’t get to bring Potter…’ Draco paused and corrected himself with a malicious grin… ‘Harry home and skip contentedly round the gardens holding hands and staring obliviously into his gorgeous eyes?’ He sneered, feigning absolute disappointment and heartbreak.
‘Beyond the fact that he is our Lord’s mortal enemy, the Potter bloodline is too closely related to that of our own.’
‘Merlin’s bunny slippers, how did we wind up so close to the Potters?’ Draco exclaimed, running a hand through his hair. ‘Next you’ll be telling me we’re related to the Weasels.’
A momentary hush filled the room before conversation reluctantly took hold again, its admission going to careful lengths to ensure it would not now, nor ever, even in the most dire of circumstances, be repeated. ‘It is the only reason we are having this conversation without the presence of their youngest.’
‘Gina…Jenny…whatever her name is.’ Draco’s eyes widened in disbelief as he clutched the mantelpiece for support, the aforementioned hated carpet not helping his growing nausea. ‘You’re telling me you seriously considered that disgusting little traitor for my future wife.’ He sighed resignedly, flipping his hair from where it had once again fallen across his face. ‘You may as well have married me off to Potter then, given how she seems constantly attached to his side.’
‘She would, at least, have been pure though. Perhaps now you will believe me when I tell you all possible alternatives have been painstakingly considered. The few remaining Pureblood families are just too interrelated.’
Draco sulked. ‘You may as well use the word inbred, father.’
Lucius snapped his fingers impatiently, drawing his son out of his wallowing. ‘Every so often the line needs an infusion of fresh blood. Unless you would rather spend the rest of your life producing Squibs, if anything at all.’ Draco cowed slightly from the gaze he found himself subjected too. ‘And I warn you now that no Squib has ever borne the Malfoy name.’
‘If you don’t mind, can we stick to the whole ‘marriage’ problem for the moment?’ Draco had turned a rather sickly and even paler shade of green, as though something horrific had only just occurred to him. ‘I don’t think my stomach can handle the thought of having to actually touch a Mudblood at the moment, let alone procreate with one.’
‘Rest assured the thought brings me no joy either.’
‘I won’t even be able to respectably declare they are at least a Slytherin.’
‘You would be surprised at some of those who have entered the house,’ Lucius commented with a sly smirk. ‘Although you are correct. On the whole, Mudbloods are not accepted, and certainly not in the last several years.’
‘I suppose I could live with a Ravenclaw,’ Draco commented in the tones of one trying to make the best of a disgusting, horrible and tragically unfair situation. ‘They would at least possess a shred of intelligence.’ He mused over the words for a moment, gaping in disbelieving shock mere seconds later as he looked at his father for confirmation that his worst fears were not about to come true. ‘You wouldn’t!’ It was barely a whisper.
‘Just because you must marry a Mudblood, it does not mean I will accept any trash into the family,’ Lucius flicked an invisible speck of dust from the sleeve of his immaculate robe.
‘She’s an intolerable know-it-all.’
‘No, she is a highly proficient know-it-all, who happens to achieve far greater academic heights than you have ever managed.’ It was a fair comment, in principal. In practise, however, his father managed to make it sound as though Draco were heroically battling for the honour of being the top student in the year, and then failing by the narrowest of margins.
It was too much. It was one thing to be discussing marriage, but to be compared in such a disparaging way to such an atrocity went beyond the realms of decency. ‘You would subject our future generations to that hair…to those teeth.’ He was wrought with indignation now.
‘You worry yourself over trivialities,’ Lucius dismissed with a small wave of his hand. ‘There is a reason we look so much alike. The Malfoy genes are dominant, and it will take more than a Mudblood to overcome them.’
‘Brilliant…absolutely wonderful.’ Draco crossed his arms and pouted. To top it all off, the portraits didn’t even bother to swoon at the mere sight of him. ‘So I get stuck having to marry so far beneath me I may as well be crawling through the gutter just so you can be assured of fathering little clones of yourself.’
‘You are not helping yourself.’
‘Neither are you.’ Draco angrily pronounced. ‘You seem to be forgetting the close personal friendship she shares with the person you previously ascertained was unacceptable due to his status as ‘mortal enemy’.’
‘I believe I also raised an issue with his gender,’ Lucius brushed the remark of his blustering son aside. Draco ignored the comment in return, ploughing steadfastly onwards.
‘You do remember her, don’t you?’ Draco wanted to make absolutely sure on this point. Failing memory seemed a far more viable explanation than the prospect of a Malfoy abstaining from revenge. ‘She was one of the ones at the Ministry. Do you really fancy your son being wed to a constant reminder of the reason you spent six months in Azkaban?’
‘Loathe as I am to admit it, but the girl displayed a natural talent we cannot overlook in our decision.’
Draco tried brooding again. ‘You say ‘our’ as though I have a choice.’
‘Present me with a viable alternative.’
‘Just about anyone.’
Lucius sighed irritably. ‘At this moment specifics would be vastly more useful than your incessant rambling.’
‘Any of the Hufflepuffs would do in a pinch.’ Oh god, had he really just said that?
‘No doubt, however it cannot have failed to escape your notice that the majority of that house carries strikingly familiar eye colours. Not to mention that horrendously recognisable black hair.’
Draco’s forehead furrowed in confusion. ‘What…Potters?’
‘Not Potter,’ Lucius snapped emphatically as the name was once again mentioned. ‘That mangy godfather of his.’
‘The homicidal maniac,’ Draco scoffed. ‘I find it hard to believe that a house renowned for its loyalty can thank that disgrace for its offspring.’
‘Perhaps, but genetics speak for themselves and cannot be denied. Name me a single blonde in that house and I shall see you wed before the day is out.’ Draco opened and closed his mouth soundlessly for a moment before snorting in defeat. He had been positive at least one of them was fair-haired, but the more he thought about it, the more he was forced to accept it was just wishful thinking.
‘Fine, so the entire house looks uncannily like Sirius Black, a close relation of my mother and therefore completely unacceptable even if it weren’t for this ridiculous inbreeding.’
‘Draco, I will not argue over this all day.’
Draco was happy to argue about this particular issue all year. ‘And I will not allow you to arbitrarily dictate my future.’
‘Draco.’ He fell into reluctant silence, glowering under the unforgiving gaze of his father. ‘I have allowed you more than enough leeway in regards to your behaviour so far, but you are a Malfoy and you will not forget it. You will either find yourself a suitable alternative of whom I approve, or you will marry the girl.’
‘Yes, father,’ Draco scowled. ‘But in the mean time I think it only fair that you be the one to inform Pansy.’