"Father." Draco stood as he inclined his head towards the Patriarch.
Without even bothering to greet his son back, Lucius motioned imperiously with his cane, "Come Draco. We leave now. I trust all your things are packed? You need not stay here a second longer."
"But the Leaving Feast-" Draco started to ask, hoping he could stall the inevitable.
"Is nothing but wash! Don't mean to tell me you want to attend such an insipid service? Besides you know very well there is somewhere we must be." Lucius snapped, irritation lining his face at being delayed on his task.
"Yes, Father." Draco replied wearily, his head bowed as he moved away from his house table, following slowly after his father and feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. Draco willed himself to be numb, to slip on the mask he had donned since he was small. He almost managed it until he made the mistake of looking up and his silver gaze instantly locked on earnest emerald eyes that were staring at him and he was lost. Those eyes were saying something that had already been said. Don't go! Don't follow him! You’re worth more than that! And for some reason they had reached him where saving words had failed to. Suddenly he felt like he could do this. If Potter could stand up to the Dark Lord year in and year out, how could he not find the strength to say 'no' to his father in this instance? Those jade eyes that burned with desperation had fueled his courage and his resolve to finally do something he had only thought of within the relative safety of his dreams.
"No." A soft voice whispered and in the silence that had prevailed since Malfoy Senior's appearance, it carried over and was heard by all and sundry.
"What do you mean "no"? Hurry up now! We have somewhere we need to be!" Lucius scowled and prodded his son a bit more with his cane.
"What I meant to say, Father, is that I cannot go with you. I know that the 'place' you are taking me to is not somewhere I want to be." His voice soft and although his grey eyes were flashing with defiance, he still took pains not to implicate the older Malfoy. The man was still his father after all.
"I have no idea what you're prattling on about, son." Lucius gritted through his teeth. "I merely want you to go with me and visit your frail and ailing mother. She does seem very anxious to see her only son. Do you wish to forsake her needs for your frivolous activities?"
Ignoring his father's blatant lies, Draco shook his head ruefully. "Father, you misunderstand. I am making a choice. Something I have been forestalling since earlier this year. Something that I have recently found the courage to do." His voice clear and a sad smile on his lips. "I trust you to take care of her in the event that I cannot." He whispered softly and it was a plea, a promise and a threat all at once. It broke his heart to watch his father’s face become etched in disappointment and twist into anger by what he would consider as his heir’s betrayal.
Raising an eyebrow, Lucius admonished him, his nostrils flaring in anger. “Might I remind you that you are still not of age and my son. You will do as I wish!”
“Père, comprenez s'il vous plaît!” Draco cried out in desperation, switching to his native tongue. His pride unwilling to let the entire Great Hall become privy to matters that weren’t anybody’s business but their own. If he must beg to be given a chance to carry out his choice then he would take it but he will not suffer airing their family’s business so crudely. It wasn’t meant for secrecy by any means for surely more than a handful of people that were currently in the Great Hall could speak French or could cast an effective Translation Spell but rather to save as much dignity as he could, no matter how small. At least the majority of the populace would be robbed of seeing his downfall first hand.
“Do you know what you’re asking?” Lucius snarled as he advanced on his wayward son.
“Yes. I am asking for a chance, father. Something that I did not think I was entitled to until recently. I can't do it, Father. I am not a killer. You know that more than most. How many times have you tried teaching me the Killing curse? How many times have I disappointed you with my inability to cast it? I'm not a murderer and if I am branded as one of his followers that is all I will ever be.”
“Are you defying me, Draco?” Lucius asked coldly, his face a mask of cold rage. “Are you sure you can pay the price for such a thing?”
”It is not my wish to defy you, Father.” Draco answered softly. “You have always been the axis of my world. The sun sets and rises by your will. I love you. I respect you. You will always be my father, although to you I might not always be your son.”
Sneering, Lucius spat. “You are aware then that disobeying me will cost you all that you are? Stripped of title, of money, of prestige and of name?”
“Yes.” He replied quietly and calmly, although it pained him greatly to do so.
“Will it be worth it?” Lucius asked in clipped tones. His face still a mask of anger but his eyes softening with a curious emotion that Draco couldn’t name.
“I honestly don’t know. But I am certain that the alternative option is not a price I am willing to pay.” Draco said resolutely.
Scoffing, Lucius tightened his grip on his cane. “Will you lie then with these mongrels? Will you fight for their cause and slay your friends in the heat of battle? All because you are too cowardly to take power when it is rightfully yours? You disgust me.”
A part of Draco died at that. He had been hoping naively that somehow this confrontation would end without him having to witness the death of his relationship with his father but here it was unfolding horrifically. Choking back a wounded sob, Draco managed not to flinch. “No. I stand alone. I don’t wish to enter this war, Father! I want to live my days out until I’m old and weary, away from all of this!”
“Then you are a coward, Draco. A coward and a ridiculous dreamer! You stand in the precipice of a war that has been raging on for more than twenty years. You think there is any surface on Earth where you can hide from it? Do you really think you can be happy standing idly by as war rages on around you? I didn’t think I raised a fool! You only have two options, boy! You either side with me or with them. And for your sake, I hope you choose the right one.” Lucius ranted as he moved closer to his heir.
Shaking with anxiety and anger, Draco raged. “Then I cast my lot with them! For they would never expect a boy to become a murderer of innocent people! They would never force their son to be marked for slavery! They would never bow in front of a deranged and delusional madman! Malfoys don’t bow, father! Have you forgotten?” His anger ignited by his father’s inherent stubbornness and unwillingness to leave his mad obsession.
Lucius raised his cane deftly and for a second Draco thought he was going to be struck but instead it landed heavily on his shoulder. “Do not speak to me in that insolent tone, child. I am still your father. If you will not suffer through my demands then I will take your life. After all, it is still mine. I created you, Draco. I can take what I have given.”
Draco smiled warily then and chuckled sarcastically. “It is ironic then for while you’ve always spoiled me and never hit me as a child that you kill me now without a second thought. For you might be a petty, vindictive man to most, but never to me.”
Lucius took the remaining strides that separated them and stood only an inch away from his son. Draco, in the meantime, forced himself not to move. He had prepared himself for the event that his father in his fury, might hurt him. However, it didn’t wound him any less now that it was actually happening. He had held out hope that his father wouldn’t go through such lengths. Perhaps he was indeed a dreamer and a fool for believing Lucius Malfoy to be capable of mercy even with his own son.
“How can you look so much like me but be so different?” Lucius mused as he touched his son’s flaxen hair and pale face. Sure enough the same grey eyes he’s seen every day looked back at him. “What have I done that has made it so easy for you to turn your back on me?” he murmured low into Draco’s ear as his hand gripped his son’s slender neck. “Judecca.” He whispered so softly that Draco didn’t hear it, his left hand against his son’s chest.
Swallowing hard against the hold, Draco managed to reply. “I am not turning my back on you! I just don’t want to be one of his followers!”
Shaking his head ruefully, Lucius sneered. “By not accepting your duty, you are actively going against me. By choosing to side with mudbloods and traitors, you are besmirching my name! Tell me what have I done to deserve a blood traitor for a son? I gave you everything, you ungrateful little brat! I fulfilled every little selfish whim you had and this is how you repay me?”
Unable to take any more of his father’s accusations, not to mention his ridiculous bleating about him being the victim in all this, Draco snarled. “You gave me nothing, Father! Nothing that I can’t live without! Yes, you gave me the money, the clothes, all the pretty little trinkets that were supposed to keep me happy but did they? Are you honestly taken aback that I wouldn't just follow your lead like a lost puppy blindly going to my death? Didn’t you ever think I would want something else than the life you chose for me?”
“The life I have given you, you insolent brat, is something several people would gladly die for a million times over. Yet you dare spit it back in my face? You are undeserving of the Malfoy name and you will not disgrace me or my family a moment longer!” Lucius bit out angrily as he grasped his cane tightly. Straightening imperiously, he brought down the cane on his son’s shoulders and intoned to everyone in the Hall, reverting back to English so all could hear and understand. “I, Lucius Malfoy, hereby proclaim to all that this filth before me is no longer my son. Draco Lucien Malfoy is no more. You are, therefore, stripped of your name, of title and of any rights as a Malfoy heir. You're forever banned from using the name Malfoy as your own. Everything you’ve ever owned, ever touched that was given by me will be confiscated this afternoon. Starting with this!” Lucius quickly grabbed Draco’s wand from his slack fingers and soundly broke it in two over his knee.
Draco flinched as his wand was broken. He felt his eyes well up with tears as he stood frozen in horror by his father’s cruelty. He knew in the back of his mind that this would happen but it was still a major blow to him. Where will he live now? How will he find money for his expenses? How can he perform magic without his wand? Draco thought in horror as reality descended upon him viciously but still he held these troubling thoughts at bay. He knew what Lucius was trying to do. He was trying to test his son’s resolve about all this. By his own means, this was Lucius’ way of trying to bring him back. Draco shook his head sadly. It wouldn’t work. There was too much at stake. Besides he would gladly spend the rest of his days working like the plebian masses he’d always ridiculed if it actually meant getting the chance to live out the rest of his life. “I understand.” He acquiesced firmly, his voice gentle but his tone resolute. He answered in English, giving up the silly hope that he could escape this confrontation with even a scrap of dignity intact. Lucius had made sure that he was now an outcast of the social circle he once ruled.
Gritting his teeth, Lucius glared at the boy standing steadily before him, furious beyond belief when he didn’t find even the slightest bit of remorse in his form. He grew angrier still as he found a part of himself actually admiring the boy for his sheer nerve and resolution. “You’ll change your mind. You don’t know how to be poor.”
Nodding his head in agreement, he answered softly. “A true Slytherin always manages to come out on top. You taught me that yourself.”
“You insolent welp! You have no idea what it means to earn your keep! You will not succeed, Slytherin or not.” Lucius scowled.
Scoffing, Draco replied wryly. “It’s pretty hypocritical of you to say that, Father. What do you know about ‘earning your keep’?”
That earned him a hard shove of Lucius’ cane. “Do you really want to start insulting me now, Draco? You know better than anyone else that it isn’t in your best interest to test my temper. In fact, I’ve been quite gracious in not killing you where you stand.” He whispered gently, almost lovingly but his words had an edge to it that warned Draco of his temperament. The younger blond stiffened in response. “Think about it, boy. You have nowhere to go. You have no one to turn to. You’re all alone if you defy me.” He breathed dangerously into his son’s ear. “Nobody crosses Lucius Malfoy without living to regret it. No one, Draco, not even you.” Lucius straightened as his cold grey eyes locked onto identical ones. “Don’t make me hurt you.” It was said so softly that Draco could almost close his eyes and imagine those words being said as a plea. An appeal from a proud yet desperate father to a son urging him not to desert him.
“I don’t regret my choice.” He said softly. “But I am sorry I hurt you with it.”
“Hurt me?” Lucius mocked the words back to the boy, his face twisting once again with volatile emotion. “How can it hurt me when they’re spoken by a stranger? Do not forget. I have no son. I need no son. Don’t you ever address me as your father again! You have lost that privilege.” The words were said with so much barbed hate that Draco couldn’t help but be shattered by it a little.
“Did you ever love me?” Draco whispered brokenly, his eyes shining with tears he refused to shed and his throat closing up with misery. He cursed himself for sounding so weak but the child inside him forced him to ask. He needed to know. Maybe then this break from this man would be less painful.
The elder Malfoy sneered one more time before turning away. His cruel words drifting in the space between them. “This wouldn’t be so easy if I did.” And Draco felt with awful certainty that even with this knowledge, it hurt more instead of less.
Lucius strode away angrily, livid at his former son for what he conceived as the worst of betrayals. He should have known that the boy was weak, should have seen it by the way he couldn’t master the last Unforgivable. He shouldn’t have placed such hopes in what he now saw as a waste of his time. He was further angered by the annoying weight that was now settling in his chest. The current pain that bore down on him the moment he realized his precious son meant to leave him forever. Well, if the boy wanted to live, he would live alright, and he would do so regretting this betrayal every second of that borrowed time. He didn’t know how it could happen. He had raised Draco meticulously, exactly as his father had done with him. He taught him discipline, honor and pride. How could his son, whom he had always likened proudly to himself, fail him so utterly? And was it really necessary for it to hurt this much? He closed his eyes as he stopped just outside of the Great Hall’s ornate doors. Then summoning all of his newfound hate for the boy he raised so diligently, he struggled to widen the gap between them and to break their ties once and for all. It would be a perfect way to accomplish it as well since their uncanny likeness that once brought him fierce pride, now made him ill at ease. He straightened his shoulders and walked the remaining paces out of the school but not before whispering intently. “Cito Judecca.”
He smiled as he walked hurriedly away, his son’s screams of pain filling the air like sweet music to his ears.
Draco couldn’t help but cry out as he felt something suddenly cleaving his chest out in two. He clawed at his shirt front, too distressed and wracked with pain to care about disrobing in public and he stared horrifically at what he found. There an invisible force was cutting a line of fire on his alabaster skin, marking the letters T R A I T O R on his once flawlessly smooth chest. Tears of pain stung his eyes as he realized the extent of his father’s cruelty and even then he could understand the man’s reasoning. He was now no longer a carbon copy of Lucius. His father could now hate him without restraint. He was so caught up in the throes of the pain that it didn’t quite register on him exactly when the curse ended and his wound sealed itself, forever leaving its scar. His body was yielding to unconsciousness but not before he felt strong arms surround him and his grey eyes locked onto concerned emerald ones. Then the world went mercifully black.
Perrectum.
Exinde:
Act VII
Prius:Act VAct IVAct IIIAct IIAct IAN: This is my first time writing Lucius. I really wanted to keep him IC but at the same time show glimpses of how he loved his son in his own twisted Malfoy way. Honestly when I was writing the ending to this chapter I was very much tempted to kill him off with “Lucius quickly strode out of the school. Rocks fall. He is DEAD.” But of course, I couldn’t :) And for those of you who are wondering what the hell happened to Harry, his perspective is shown in the next chapter. J
Judecca- is the level of Hell reserved for traitors. It is said in Dante’s Divine Comedy to be the place where Judas Escariot and Satan reside.
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Date: 2006-06-06 09:38 pm (UTC)