Sins of the Father
The next morning Scorpius could barely contain himself. His mother had only taken him to Diagon Alley a few times and he’d never gone with his father before. Occasionally Draco would take his son to watch a Puddlemere United game from the owner’s box. Family outings were typically to Malfoy Manor or to Paris to visit his aunt and other grandparents. Today their first stop was at Gringotts.
Scorpius had never been inside the bank before, nor had he ever seen goblins. He remembered what his grandfather had told him and made sure to hang on to his Galleons tightly. Before long Draco and Scorpius were in a cart speeding them through underground tunnels; Astoria had stayed behind as the cart rides made her feel ill.
Scorpius was amazed upon seeing the contents of the family vault. He’d known his parents were wealthy but he hadn’t ever imagined such an enormous pile of Galleons. There were several other things too, some seemed goblin-made. Others were jewels or fine china.
Draco couldn’t help but look smug. His Slytherin abilities had made him a very successful businessman. He owned a chain of apothecaries and they had flourished under his care. He had invested in several other businesses as well. He was rich and self-made, something neither his father nor his grandfather had achieved; both of them had inherited the majority of their wealth. He handed his son a money bag and encouraged him to fill it. Today was a day for extravagance and the Malfoys could easily afford it.
After another thrilling cart ride, the family was on their way to begin shopping for the school supply list. Astoria insisted on going to Madam Malkin’s first. Scorpius considered this the least exciting thing they could possibly do, however, he obediently stood still while the little old witch and her assistant measured him. They had been extra attentive once Astoria told them she wanted a half dozen sets of work robes, two winter cloaks, and a set of dress robes. Scorpius had read the list of required clothing and hoped there would be room in his dormitory for all the extra robes. He especially hoped that the extra clothes wouldn’t add to the time they were wasting in a boring robe shop. Upon seeing what the dress robes looked like he added the hope that he wouldn’t ever have to wear them, despite his mother having clasped her hands in delight and telling him how handsome he’d look.
When Astoria wasn’t looking Draco whispered in Scorpius’s ear, “Don’t worry, there’s no way you’ll have to wear them, at least not this year.”
Scorpius grinned up at his father in reply.
After what seemed forever to Scorpius, Astoria left instructions for the robes to all have nametags reading, “S. S. Malfoy.” In his hurry to move on to more interesting shops, Scorpius missed seeing the shadow that passed over Madam Malkin’s face upon hearing the name. Draco tried not to wince whereas Astoria simply ignored the older woman’s expression.
Upon exiting Madam Malkin’s, Draco turned to his son and asked, “How would you like a broom of your own?”
Scorpius’s face lit up at these words, but quickly fell again. “First years aren’t allowed brooms,” he replied in a dull voice.
“It would still give you the chance to learn to fly at home. I’d be happy to teach you…”
The rest of Draco’s words were drowned out by Scorpius’s shout of excitement. Astoria offered to pick up the cauldron, scales, telescope and phials while her husband and son picked out a broom. She didn’t like the idea of staring at broomsticks anymore than Scorpius wanted to shop for cauldrons. With that, Scorpius and Draco excitedly hurried over to Quality Quidditch Supplies, wearing identical expressions of boyish glee.
After browsing for nearly an hour they settled on the Thunderbolt, a beginner’s version of the Firebolt which had only been released the previous year. Scorpius loved the feel of the polished wood and could hardly believe it was his. They also purchased a broomstick servicing kit, Self-Straightening Brush and a Warning Whistle.
The sack of Galleons was considerably lighter upon leaving Quality Quidditch Supplies. As they walked down Diagon Alley, Scorpius noticed an older woman walking in their direction. Draco noticed her as well and told Scorpius, “Run along to the Magical Menagerie, I’ll meet you there in a little while.”
Draco then followed the older woman, whom he knew to be Andromeda Tonks. She seemed to be determinedly ignoring him so he tapped her on the shoulder.
“Mrs Tonks, I believe?”
Draco had prepared himself for anger but the look of contempt he saw in his aunt’s amber eyes was far worse than he had expected. He hadn’t expected the slap across his face either.
“How dare you?” she asked in an icy voice. The words stung nearly as much as his cheek.
“I… I wanted to invite you and your grandson over to my home for dinner… when-whenever is convenient to you both…” Draco didn’t normally stumble over his words but his aunt had completely unnerved him.
“We want nothing to do with you, your mother, or any other member of your family.”
“You are members of my family,” Draco pointed out, hoping to win her over.
“And that’s why my only daughter and her husband were murdered. That’s why my grandson grew up without either of his parents. Now you and your family can leave us well enough alone!”
She had raised her wand and was pointing it at him. Draco looked down, unable to continue to meet her furious gaze. “I’m sorry. I won’t bother you again.”
He hurried to the relative safety of one of his apothecaries. Once there, he took a few minutes to compose himself. Astoria had been right, contacting his aunt had been a bad idea, but doing it in person had been a disastrous one. He decided not to tell her about this run-in. When he had seen Andromeda walking down the street, merely feet from him, he simply hadn’t been able to resist trying to renew family ties. He couldn’t explain why, but had felt that bringing Andromeda and Theodore back into the family would in some way pay for his previous wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, Scorpius was completely oblivious to his father having been slapped and shouted at. He’d been hurrying over to the Magical Menagerie, just as Draco had told him, when something stopped him. A girl, about his age, standing near a side alley was frantically looking about.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Tearful blue eyes looked up into his. “I- I’ve lost my cousins and I don’t know how to get back to my uncle’s shop. We snuck off to Knockturn Alley and I got turned around…”
“Don’t worry. I’ll help you find it,” replied Scorpius. This girl already seemed much nicer than Rachel Zabini. “Which shop are you looking for?”
“Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes,” she answered.
“Oh! I know where that is, it’s just around the corner but you can’t see it from here.”
Scorpius led her around until the shop was within sight.
“Oh, thank you! We left out the back entrance, but I’ll just go in the front. Do you want to come too?”
“Sure!” replied Scorpius, excited at the possibility of having made a friend and meeting more.
“Are you shopping for your Hogwarts things?” the girl asked him.
“Yeah, it’s my first year, what about you?”
“Mine too! And my cousin, Albus. Maybe we’ll be in the same house!”
“What house do you think you’ll be in?” asked Scorpius, hoping the girl would say Slytherin. He really liked the idea of knowing someone in his house before he got there.
“Well, Dad’s always going on about how we all have to be in Gryffindor like him and Mum. But, I’m pretty sure he’s only joking. Mum says any house is fine. Most of my older cousins are Gryffindors. Victoire isn’t though. She’s a Ravenclaw and head girl! But her mum didn’t go to Hogwarts at all, well except for one year when she was in the Triwizard tournament with Uncle Harry…”
Scorpius didn’t really mind that his new acquaintance was doing all the talking; he usually only had himself to talk to.
“Uncle Harry was actually too young to be in the tournament but a man pretending to be their teacher tricked a cup into thinking it was okay. Uncle Harry doesn’t talk about the tournament much though, but Auntie Fleur told us how he rescued her sister and Dad from the merpeople at the bottom of the lake at Hogwarts…”
“There’s merpeople in the lake at Hogwarts?!” interrupted Scorpius. “That wasn’t in Hogwarts, A History.
“You read Hogwarts, A History?” asked the girl in delight.
“Well, yeah, how else would I know what to expect?”
“I read it too! None of my cousins ever did or my uncles or aunts. Dad said Mum and me are probably the only people who ever read the whole book but obviously that’s wrong since you read it too…”
Scorpius was feeling a bit envious of this girl and her enormous family. The way she spoke of her uncles, aunts and cousins made it sound as though there were enough of them to make an army.
“Rosie! Where have you been? Your parents are scouring Knockturn Alley with half the family!”
“Auntie Alicia! I got lost and then I met… actually I don’t know his name, and he helped me find the shop and he’s going to Hogwarts too! He’s a first year like me and Albus! And he read Hogwarts, A History too!”
Alicia turned to Scorpius and gave him a very peculiar look but quickly replaced it with a pleasant expression. “Well, thank you for helping Rosie find her way back.”
“You’re welcome,” answered Scorpius, politely. He was a bit nervous that Rosie’s aunt had looked at him as though he were a ghost. “I’d better go find my dad. I didn’t tell him where I was going.”
“Wait!” called Rosie, “I don’t know your name!”
He’d already started to leave but turned and yelled over his shoulder, “Scorpius!”
“I didn’t find out his last name,” Rosie complained to her aunt as Scorpius disappeared into the crowd.
“Malfoy,” answered Alicia, staring after the boy who was the spitting image of his father.
Scorpius arrived at the Magical Menagerie just before his father did. He noticed that his father didn’t seem as easy-going as he had been earlier and decided not to mention his detour to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Draco calmed down as they browsed though, looking at assorted Kneazle kittens, Puffskeins, Pygmy Puffs, toads, snakes and even an Augurey. What fascinated Scorpius most were the Crup puppies. Draco let him play with them but warned him that they couldn’t take one home.
“Please, Dad?” begged Scorpius as one of the puppies licked his chin.
“Your mother would murder us both and you know it. She’s allergic to Crups.”
“Well, couldn’t I have a pet? The letter said I could bring an owl, cat or toad.”
Draco considered this. “The last thing we want is another cat, and any pet would have to come home during the holidays. No son of mine is going to take a toad to Hogwarts. That’s just begging to be teased. An owl wouldn’t be much extra work though...”
It wasn’t long before Draco left the owl emporium with Scorpius and a tawny owl. Astoria’s lips went thin upon seeing the owl cage, in a way that was highly reminiscent of Professor McGonagall. Draco thought it best not to mention the similarity to Astoria; he suspected he was in enough trouble already.
Their second last stop was at Ollivander’s. Silvanus Ollivander was quite old and had taken on an apprentice: his cousin’s granddaughter, Selene. Draco stopped a few shops before Ollivander’s, telling Astoria and Scorpius that he’d forgotten an appointment he had but to go on without him. Scorpius tried to hide his disappointment that his father’s meeting was more important than being there when he got his first wand.
His disappointment quickly turned to wonder as he entered the wand shop with shelf upon shelf of long thin boxes. Mr Ollivander came out to greet them. He gave Scorpius a look that was similar to the one Rosie’s aunt had given him, only more fearful.
“Selene! I think I need a cup of tea; perhaps you could see to young Mr Malfoy?”
Before Scorpius could ask how the old man had known his name, a young woman hurried out from the back room and asked him to hold out his wand arm. After she had taken his measurements, she muttered, “Hmm, nine to eleven inches by the looks of it…”
“Sorry?” asked Scorpius.
“Oh, the length of your wand is usually proportional to what your adult height will be. Ten inches seems like a good guess.”
She hurried over to a shelf and pulled down some boxes.
“What else determines my wand?” asked Scorpius, filled with curiosity.
“Well, wandlore isn’t an exact science, yet. However, there are a lot of patterns that have been observed over centuries. Length is usually the easiest to determine, but we know a bit about the wood and core of the wands as well. Here, try this ebony and unicorn hair.”
Scorpius had no idea what she meant by ‘try’ but obediently held the wand. Feeling rather silly, he gave it a flick. Nothing happened, except that the wand was snatched back.
“Nope. Well, the wood of the wand is determined by your physical self, when you were born, your natural abilities, that sort of thing. It’s hard to be precise since for many people, different parts apply to different woods, making it difficult to determine which wood is the dominant one. Birch and dragon heartstring, give it a whirl.”
Scorpius tried this wand as well but it too was snatched back.
“Er, so what determines the core?” he asked.
“The core actually chooses its owner. Each of our wand cores came from unicorns, dragons or phoenixes. Each of them has a personality and that is embedded, to some extent in the core. That personality looks at the part of you that’s more than what you were born: who you are. If the core doesn’t like you, it won’t work for you as well as another wand. If the core does like something it senses within you, it will work better for you than another wand. Aha! Elder and phoenix feather!”
However, that wand didn’t work either. As the pile of wands that didn’t choose him grew, Scorpius began to worry; what if there was no wand that liked him? Mahogany and unicorn hair, cedar and phoenix feather, oak and dragon heartstring, the pile kept growing.
At last red sparks shot from a wand that Selene had handed him.
“Hawthorn and phoenix feather!” she announced, beaming.
As Astoria paid the twelve Galleons for the wand, Mr Ollivander emerged from the backroom. His silvery eyes found Scorpius’s gray ones.
“I sold your father his first wand; it was also a ten inch hawthorn. It would seem that while you look quite alike, at your core you may be quite different.”
Scorpius realized that Mr Ollivander wasn’t just talking about wands but couldn’t figure out what it was that the old man was trying to tell him. Before he could ask any questions, his mother was taking him to Flourish and Blott’s.
“What did Mr Ollivander mean?” Scorpius asked his mother.
“Oh, who knows? He’s quite mad, but he makes the best wands in Europe.”
“The wandlore was interesting.”
“I wouldn’t put too much weight on that, Dear. She’s Mr Ollivander’s apprentice; he taught her that. Hopefully he also taught her how to make wands.”
“Oh.” Scorpius had found the wandlore quite fascinating. Perhaps he could find a book on the subject at Flourish and Blott’s. The bookshop was Scorpius’s second favourite shop on Diagon Alley, the Magical Menagerie was still first.
Draco was waiting for them when they arrived. He offered to help Scorpius look for a book on wandlore. Disappointingly, the owner informed them that he didn’t carry any. Scorpius still spent a good hour browsing the bookshelves with his parents. In addition to his schoolbooks, he bought Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland, Dreadful Denizens of the Deep, and He Flew Like a Madman.
Astoria had arranged for all their parcels to be sent to them, although they took the broomstick, owl and extra books home with them. Scorpius enjoyed the rest of his summer. He played with his owl, learned how to fly and finished his new books. Still, he couldn’t wait for his first day at Hogwarts when he would finally get the chance to be around other children his own age. He was particularly looking forward to getting to see Rosie again.
The night of August thirty-first there was a gentle knock on Scorpius’s door. Draco looked more drawn than he had in many years. “There’s something I need to talk to you about, Son.”
Scorpius hadn’t the slightest idea why his father wanted to talk to him. He wracked his brain, trying to recall any recent misdeeds. Draco elaborated, “There’s something I need to tell you about my… my past, before you go to school.”
This sounded extremely interesting to Scorpius, his father hardly ever spoke of his childhood.
“Remember when Mum and I told you about the Great War?”
“The one against Voldemort?”
Draco winced. “Yes. We told you that he and his Death Eaters had taken over nearly everywhere and that a group called the Order of the Phoenix opposed him, even after he took over the Ministry.”
Scorpius nodded. “And you told me about how Mr Potter fought him when he attacked Hogwarts and how all the teachers defended the school.”
Draco sighed and rubbed his temples. “What I didn’t tell you was that I went to school with Potter. We hated each other. I tried to be friends with him on the way to Hogwarts, but he’d already made friends and wanted nothing to do with me. It all got worse from there. He even used dark magic on me and nearly killed me in our sixth year.”
Scorpius was amazed; he’d never heard any of this before. “You and Potter hate each other?”
“Yes, well we were Seekers for different houses, he was famous when he arrived at school and was always showing off, it was a schoolboy grudge and it was stupid of us.”
Draco swallowed and continued. “In the first war against You-Know-Who, my father was blinded by You-Know-Who’s lies and joined him. Once he realized what You-Know-Who was really like, it was too late to get out. When You-Know-Who returned it was the end of my fourth year at Hogwarts. Father had to return into You-Know-Who’s service or Mother and I would have been murdered.”
Scorpius’s eyes were wide; he’d never even imagined anything so horrible in his short, sheltered life.
Draco put a reassuring hand on his son’s shoulder. “Father was given the job of procuring a prophecy but Potter destroyed it. Father was arrested and sent to Azkaban. To further punish him for not accomplishing his task, You-Know-Who forced me to join him. He gave me an impossible task to complete, telling me that if I failed he’d kill Mother and me.”
He was now reciting his story, almost completely devoid of emotion. “I didn’t fail, not completely. I managed half of my task, which meant that my life and Mother’s were spared. You-Know-Who was still angry with me though, I wouldn’t kill the man he’d ordered me to murder. He got Father out of Azkaban and kept us prisoner in Malfoy Manor. He did terrible things there.”
Draco looked into the horrified eyes of his son and gently told him, “I won’t tell you what happened there. We were kept prisoner for nearly a year. Then we were taken with him to the Battle of Hogwarts. Once there, Mother betrayed You-Know-Who and saved Potter’s life. Potter then went on to defeat You-Know-Who. The Wizengamot tried us as all three of us had been branded with You-Know-Who’s mark. We were each found innocent as we’d been forced to do his bidding.”
Scorpius was holding onto his father tightly. “Wh-why are you telling me this?” he asked in a frightened voice.
Draco hung his head. “Not everyone believed that we had no choice and it didn’t help that Potter and I didn’t get along as boys. I wanted you to hear this from me instead of some school-children who’ve been raised on their parents’ lies.”
Scorpius looked up into his father’s face; gray eyes met identical gray eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
Draco looked away and quietly answered, “I didn’t want you to be ashamed of me.”
To Draco’s surprise, Scorpius hugged him tightly, answering, “I’ll always be proud that you’re my dad.”