Tincture of Vice (HP)
Title: Tincture of Vice
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It's been nearly eighteen years since Dumbledore's death, and Draco Malfoy, who has been in hiding all this time, has finally turned himself in. Harry wants to know why.
Note: Written as a pinch-hit for the 2006 springtime_gen exchange.
DISCLAIMER: J.K. Rowling owns the Harry Potter universe and everything it encompasses. This is a work of fan fiction, and thus derives no profit or material benefit therefrom.
"I find that the best goodness I have has some tincture of vice." (Montaigne)
It took nearly eighteen years to find Draco Malfoy. By then, the Malfoy name had been relegated to the dustbins of obscurity and unpleasant but fading memories. People wanted to forget the dark times, when Voldemort and his followers wreaked havoc and destruction across Britain, all in the name of blood purity. When Lucius Malfoy's only child disappeared the night Albus Dumbledore was murdered, efforts were made to locate Draco and bring him to justice, but he remained at large. In the frenzy that erupted along with Voldemort's second attempt to subject the wizarding world to his will, including his audacious takeover of Azkaban and release of the Death Eaters imprisoned there, everyone had more pressing matters to concern themselves with than a wayward seventeen-year-old Death Eater.
Except for Harry Potter. Throughout the grueling search for the remaining Horcruxes, his horrible final confrontation with Voldemort and the subsequent fallout; through the years he spent training up to be an Auror; even through his reconciliation, courtship and eventual marriage to Ginny Weasley and the gradual expansion of their family, Harry could never quite let go of the memory of Draco on the Astronomy Tower that June night, his wand aimed at Dumbledore. Upon his appointment to the Auror Division, Harry made apprehending Malfoy his top priority.
In time, Harry's fixation abated, though it never really went away. He had a family he cherished, a job that challenged him, good friends, and he was finally emerging from under the long shadow cast by the Boy Who Lived. Clinging to the past had become a hindrance. Life moved on, taking him with it. Every now and then, though, usually as he lay awake in bed mulling over the day's events, a flash of memory would jolt him out of his complacency like a bolt of lightning on a muggy summer night.
Then the owl arrived. Harry reckoned Malfoy himself sent in the anonymous tip that led to his capture. After so many years on the run, he was probably weary and ready to return home, whatever the consequences might be. He surrendered without incident when the team of Hit Wizards Harry sent to bring him in surrounded a remote trapper's lodge in Lapland. After confiscating his wand, they brought him straight to Azkaban, where he would remain in custody until the Wizengamot had decided what to do with him.
While they deliberated, Harry took it upon himself to sweep out the cobwebs of his past once and for all. He had questions that demanded an answer, and a lingering desire to know that Malfoy had suffered as he had. He hoped that by confronting Malfoy he could finally move forward. With that goal in mind, he slipped out of the Ministry one afternoon and Apparated to Azkaban.
The years had not been kind to Malfoy. He'd been guaranteed three square meals a day since his arrest a week ago, and upon arriving on the island he'd been allowed to shave off his matted beard, bathe, and don clean prison-issue robes. None of this, however, could hide his stringy, dull hair, the dark circles under his eyes, and his overall haggard appearance. He sat directly in a beam of sunlight, his face turned towards the window and his arms clutched tightly around his midsection as though he were storing up warmth for years to come. Harry studied Malfoy from the other side of the magical barrier keeping him in his cell and felt a rush of pity that he hadn't expected.
"Quit looking at me like that, Potter. You're making my skin crawl."
The pity evaporated. Malfoy's appearance might be radically altered from what Harry remembered, but neither his voice nor his arrogance had been changed by the years he'd spent as one of the wizarding world's most wanted fugitives. "I see some things never change," Harry said.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I would think, given your present situation, you'd demonstrate a little humility."
Malfoy guffawed. "Humility? In your sanctified presence? You must have mistaken me for someone who actually admires you." He rose to approach Harry. "Still suffering from that tiresome Boy-Who-Lived complex?"
Harry bit back an oath. "Still just as pathetic as you ever were?" He smirked as Malfoy's jaw tensed. "Just as I thought. You'll never learn, will you?"
"And what is it I'm supposed to have learned?"
"That you were wrong. Wrong about pureblood superiority, wrong about Dumbledore, wrong about your father --"
Malfoy clenched his fists. "You leave my father out of this!"
"Why should I? This is all his doing. You wouldn't be here if he hadn't been such a blind fool."
"How d'you reckon that?"
"You're a smart bloke, Malfoy. You were always one of the top students in our year. Why couldn't you think for yourself? All you ever did was parrot back what you thought other people wanted to hear."
"Piss off, Potter." Malfoy strode to the far end of his cell to rest his arms on the windowsill and look outside. "You always had it in for me, didn't you," he said with his back still to Harry. "From the moment we met, you decided you hated me. You're like that -- you pass judgment without even thinking."
"Better that than to judge people based on whether or not their blood is pure enough! One of the first things you ever said to me was to ask if my parents were magical, d'you remember?" Malfoy shook his head.
Harry laughed bitterly. "There you were, all bent out of shape at the very idea of 'the other sort' getting in to Hogwarts, and your father preaching the gospel of pureblood superiority, when all along Voldemort was a half-blood. A half-blood!" Malfoy looked up as Harry beat the side of his fist against the wall outside his cell. "Just like me. If your father wanted to sacrifice his sorry life for a delusion it makes no difference to me, but don't try to convince me you never figured out the truth for yourself."
"So what if I had? What good would it have done?"
"Dumbledore would have helped you, if you'd've let him. He would have made sure you and your mother were safe. You chose to turn him down."
Malfoy's eyes narrowed. "How d'you know that?"
"I was there. I was on the tower with Dumbledore that night. I saw the whole thing."
"You were there?" Harry nodded. Malfoy sucked in his breath. "Yours was the second broom. I should have known." He shook his head as if amused, then looked up again at Harry. "So then you know I didn't kill him."
"I know you didn't have the nerve. You're a coward, just like your father." He paused when Malfoy bared his teeth. "When he saw which way the tide was turning, he tried to switch sides. Your dear Auntie Bellatrix killed him for it. You're probably going to spend the rest of your life here in Azkaban, because you were too cowardly to own up to your actions when it mattered." Harry snorted in derision. "Your mother had more courage than the two of you combined."
Malfoy turned back towards the window. "Speaking of my mother, why hasn't she been allowed to visit me?" he asked quietly. The arrogance and disdain that had been there throughout the interview was gone.
Surprised, Harry took a step back. "You-You've not heard?"
"Heard what? Since you seem to have forgotten, I've been a fugitive for the past eighteen years. I haven't heard much of anything."
"She committed suicide fourteen years ago." Harry approached the cell when Malfoy turned to look at him, all color drained from his face. "I'm sorry. I thought you would have learned that long before now."
Malfoy took several unsteady steps towards his bed, where he collapsed and buried his face in his hands. Pity once again filled Harry as the man's shoulders heaved in silent grief.
Several minutes passed before Malfoy raised his face from his hands, but when he did, his composure had been completely restored. "Did she leave a note, anything to explain why?" he asked hoarsely.
Harry nodded. "She said she couldn't bear to go on living in a world where purebloods were treated with contempt and most of the people she loved were looked down upon as common criminals."
"At least she and my father are free now," Malfoy said with a sigh.
"I truly am sorry," Harry said.
When Malfoy looked up at him, Harry was astonished at the naked vulnerability in his eyes. "Why you, Potter? Why you and not me? I had every possible advantage anyone could hope for from the moment of my birth."
"And yet here we are."
"Here we are."
"Being born with a silver wand in your hand, or with the purest blood in all of the wizarding world, doesn't make you a better wizard, or even a better person, Malfoy. It just makes you a rich wizard with a family tree that can fit on a square yard of parchment." Harry took a breath. "And now you're the last of your kind. The only cousins you have left, save the Weasleys and Neville Longbottom, are all of mixed heritage. Your father's dream of purifying our kind will die with you."
"My kind, Potter." Malfoy raised his chin in defiance. "My kind. You're as tainted as the rest of the lot."
Harry shrugged. "Have it your way. My kind won the war, and my kind don't find themselves locked up in Azkaban."
"That hardly gives you exclusive claim to the moral high ground."
"If you're so convinced you weren't in the wrong, then why didn't you turn yourself in years ago?"
Malfoy hesitated. "Because I knew you weren't ready to hear me out."
"What on earth makes you think I'd want to listen to your rationalizations now?"
"You're here now, aren't you?" He laughed softly as Harry felt his cheeks grow hot. "Oh, I know you'll never be convinced that I did nothing wrong. You never were one for depth of perception, Potter. You're much too single-minded to appreciate the sort of delicate moral compromise and self-reflection that I learned to practice long ago."
"What are you on about?"
"The truth is, I just didn't hate Dumbledore enough. Oh, I hated him all right, and everything he stood for. I simply couldn't find it in me to hate him enough as a man." His face twisted into a rictus of sardonic amusement. "Had it been you or that jumped-up Mudblood Granger, on the other hand..." His leer faded quickly when he looked at Harry's face. "Have you ever murdered anyone? Have you ever been able to use an Unforgivable Curse on someone?"
Harry inhaled sharply. He wanted to throw Malfoy's question back in his face with a resounding yes. It would be a lie, though; more importantly, it would be a lie he didn't want to claim ownership of simply to assert his superiority. "No."
"Believe it or not, nor have I." He stood up from his bed and approached Harry. "The closest I ever came to killing anyone was that year -- the necklace, and the poisoned mead, and then..."
"That night on the tower."
Malfoy nodded. "That night on the tower."
"And in all this time since, you never used an Unforgivable? Not even to defend yourself?" Malfoy shook his head. "Then what have you been doing for the past eighteen years? If you did nothing wrong..."
Malfoy grinned, but there was no humor in his expression. "Because you've been right about me all along." He drew nearer, until he was as close to the barrier as he could get, mere inches from Harry, and looked him directly in the eye. "I've been on the run all this time because I am -- because I was -- afraid."
Harry staggered under the weight of Malfoy's admission. "S-Sorry?"
"Don't make me repeat myself. Once in a lifetime is enough for me to say something like that to you."
"I don't understand," Harry said. "Why now?"
"It's like I told you: I knew you weren't ready to hear it. Even now you find it incredible." He folded his arms over his chest. "See, Potter, you've always been so damn sure of yourself. Everything is black and white to you. It was the same with my father, only he didn't wear his convictions on his sleeve the way you do. He was prepared to compromise his morals if he found it necessary for survival." He turned and walked back towards the window. "You call it cowardice. I call it convenience."
Harry squinted at Malfoy, trying to make sense of what he was saying. "So you're saying you came back now because it's convenient?"
Malfoy's hollow laugh echoed off the stone walls of his cell. "I'd hardly call my present situation 'convenient'," he said. He chuckled again. "No, definitely not convenient. But in the end, it was the right thing to do."
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It's been nearly eighteen years since Dumbledore's death, and Draco Malfoy, who has been in hiding all this time, has finally turned himself in. Harry wants to know why.
Note: Written as a pinch-hit for the 2006 springtime_gen exchange.
DISCLAIMER: J.K. Rowling owns the Harry Potter universe and everything it encompasses. This is a work of fan fiction, and thus derives no profit or material benefit therefrom.
"I find that the best goodness I have has some tincture of vice." (Montaigne)
It took nearly eighteen years to find Draco Malfoy. By then, the Malfoy name had been relegated to the dustbins of obscurity and unpleasant but fading memories. People wanted to forget the dark times, when Voldemort and his followers wreaked havoc and destruction across Britain, all in the name of blood purity. When Lucius Malfoy's only child disappeared the night Albus Dumbledore was murdered, efforts were made to locate Draco and bring him to justice, but he remained at large. In the frenzy that erupted along with Voldemort's second attempt to subject the wizarding world to his will, including his audacious takeover of Azkaban and release of the Death Eaters imprisoned there, everyone had more pressing matters to concern themselves with than a wayward seventeen-year-old Death Eater.
Except for Harry Potter. Throughout the grueling search for the remaining Horcruxes, his horrible final confrontation with Voldemort and the subsequent fallout; through the years he spent training up to be an Auror; even through his reconciliation, courtship and eventual marriage to Ginny Weasley and the gradual expansion of their family, Harry could never quite let go of the memory of Draco on the Astronomy Tower that June night, his wand aimed at Dumbledore. Upon his appointment to the Auror Division, Harry made apprehending Malfoy his top priority.
In time, Harry's fixation abated, though it never really went away. He had a family he cherished, a job that challenged him, good friends, and he was finally emerging from under the long shadow cast by the Boy Who Lived. Clinging to the past had become a hindrance. Life moved on, taking him with it. Every now and then, though, usually as he lay awake in bed mulling over the day's events, a flash of memory would jolt him out of his complacency like a bolt of lightning on a muggy summer night.
Then the owl arrived. Harry reckoned Malfoy himself sent in the anonymous tip that led to his capture. After so many years on the run, he was probably weary and ready to return home, whatever the consequences might be. He surrendered without incident when the team of Hit Wizards Harry sent to bring him in surrounded a remote trapper's lodge in Lapland. After confiscating his wand, they brought him straight to Azkaban, where he would remain in custody until the Wizengamot had decided what to do with him.
While they deliberated, Harry took it upon himself to sweep out the cobwebs of his past once and for all. He had questions that demanded an answer, and a lingering desire to know that Malfoy had suffered as he had. He hoped that by confronting Malfoy he could finally move forward. With that goal in mind, he slipped out of the Ministry one afternoon and Apparated to Azkaban.
The years had not been kind to Malfoy. He'd been guaranteed three square meals a day since his arrest a week ago, and upon arriving on the island he'd been allowed to shave off his matted beard, bathe, and don clean prison-issue robes. None of this, however, could hide his stringy, dull hair, the dark circles under his eyes, and his overall haggard appearance. He sat directly in a beam of sunlight, his face turned towards the window and his arms clutched tightly around his midsection as though he were storing up warmth for years to come. Harry studied Malfoy from the other side of the magical barrier keeping him in his cell and felt a rush of pity that he hadn't expected.
"Quit looking at me like that, Potter. You're making my skin crawl."
The pity evaporated. Malfoy's appearance might be radically altered from what Harry remembered, but neither his voice nor his arrogance had been changed by the years he'd spent as one of the wizarding world's most wanted fugitives. "I see some things never change," Harry said.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I would think, given your present situation, you'd demonstrate a little humility."
Malfoy guffawed. "Humility? In your sanctified presence? You must have mistaken me for someone who actually admires you." He rose to approach Harry. "Still suffering from that tiresome Boy-Who-Lived complex?"
Harry bit back an oath. "Still just as pathetic as you ever were?" He smirked as Malfoy's jaw tensed. "Just as I thought. You'll never learn, will you?"
"And what is it I'm supposed to have learned?"
"That you were wrong. Wrong about pureblood superiority, wrong about Dumbledore, wrong about your father --"
Malfoy clenched his fists. "You leave my father out of this!"
"Why should I? This is all his doing. You wouldn't be here if he hadn't been such a blind fool."
"How d'you reckon that?"
"You're a smart bloke, Malfoy. You were always one of the top students in our year. Why couldn't you think for yourself? All you ever did was parrot back what you thought other people wanted to hear."
"Piss off, Potter." Malfoy strode to the far end of his cell to rest his arms on the windowsill and look outside. "You always had it in for me, didn't you," he said with his back still to Harry. "From the moment we met, you decided you hated me. You're like that -- you pass judgment without even thinking."
"Better that than to judge people based on whether or not their blood is pure enough! One of the first things you ever said to me was to ask if my parents were magical, d'you remember?" Malfoy shook his head.
Harry laughed bitterly. "There you were, all bent out of shape at the very idea of 'the other sort' getting in to Hogwarts, and your father preaching the gospel of pureblood superiority, when all along Voldemort was a half-blood. A half-blood!" Malfoy looked up as Harry beat the side of his fist against the wall outside his cell. "Just like me. If your father wanted to sacrifice his sorry life for a delusion it makes no difference to me, but don't try to convince me you never figured out the truth for yourself."
"So what if I had? What good would it have done?"
"Dumbledore would have helped you, if you'd've let him. He would have made sure you and your mother were safe. You chose to turn him down."
Malfoy's eyes narrowed. "How d'you know that?"
"I was there. I was on the tower with Dumbledore that night. I saw the whole thing."
"You were there?" Harry nodded. Malfoy sucked in his breath. "Yours was the second broom. I should have known." He shook his head as if amused, then looked up again at Harry. "So then you know I didn't kill him."
"I know you didn't have the nerve. You're a coward, just like your father." He paused when Malfoy bared his teeth. "When he saw which way the tide was turning, he tried to switch sides. Your dear Auntie Bellatrix killed him for it. You're probably going to spend the rest of your life here in Azkaban, because you were too cowardly to own up to your actions when it mattered." Harry snorted in derision. "Your mother had more courage than the two of you combined."
Malfoy turned back towards the window. "Speaking of my mother, why hasn't she been allowed to visit me?" he asked quietly. The arrogance and disdain that had been there throughout the interview was gone.
Surprised, Harry took a step back. "You-You've not heard?"
"Heard what? Since you seem to have forgotten, I've been a fugitive for the past eighteen years. I haven't heard much of anything."
"She committed suicide fourteen years ago." Harry approached the cell when Malfoy turned to look at him, all color drained from his face. "I'm sorry. I thought you would have learned that long before now."
Malfoy took several unsteady steps towards his bed, where he collapsed and buried his face in his hands. Pity once again filled Harry as the man's shoulders heaved in silent grief.
Several minutes passed before Malfoy raised his face from his hands, but when he did, his composure had been completely restored. "Did she leave a note, anything to explain why?" he asked hoarsely.
Harry nodded. "She said she couldn't bear to go on living in a world where purebloods were treated with contempt and most of the people she loved were looked down upon as common criminals."
"At least she and my father are free now," Malfoy said with a sigh.
"I truly am sorry," Harry said.
When Malfoy looked up at him, Harry was astonished at the naked vulnerability in his eyes. "Why you, Potter? Why you and not me? I had every possible advantage anyone could hope for from the moment of my birth."
"And yet here we are."
"Here we are."
"Being born with a silver wand in your hand, or with the purest blood in all of the wizarding world, doesn't make you a better wizard, or even a better person, Malfoy. It just makes you a rich wizard with a family tree that can fit on a square yard of parchment." Harry took a breath. "And now you're the last of your kind. The only cousins you have left, save the Weasleys and Neville Longbottom, are all of mixed heritage. Your father's dream of purifying our kind will die with you."
"My kind, Potter." Malfoy raised his chin in defiance. "My kind. You're as tainted as the rest of the lot."
Harry shrugged. "Have it your way. My kind won the war, and my kind don't find themselves locked up in Azkaban."
"That hardly gives you exclusive claim to the moral high ground."
"If you're so convinced you weren't in the wrong, then why didn't you turn yourself in years ago?"
Malfoy hesitated. "Because I knew you weren't ready to hear me out."
"What on earth makes you think I'd want to listen to your rationalizations now?"
"You're here now, aren't you?" He laughed softly as Harry felt his cheeks grow hot. "Oh, I know you'll never be convinced that I did nothing wrong. You never were one for depth of perception, Potter. You're much too single-minded to appreciate the sort of delicate moral compromise and self-reflection that I learned to practice long ago."
"What are you on about?"
"The truth is, I just didn't hate Dumbledore enough. Oh, I hated him all right, and everything he stood for. I simply couldn't find it in me to hate him enough as a man." His face twisted into a rictus of sardonic amusement. "Had it been you or that jumped-up Mudblood Granger, on the other hand..." His leer faded quickly when he looked at Harry's face. "Have you ever murdered anyone? Have you ever been able to use an Unforgivable Curse on someone?"
Harry inhaled sharply. He wanted to throw Malfoy's question back in his face with a resounding yes. It would be a lie, though; more importantly, it would be a lie he didn't want to claim ownership of simply to assert his superiority. "No."
"Believe it or not, nor have I." He stood up from his bed and approached Harry. "The closest I ever came to killing anyone was that year -- the necklace, and the poisoned mead, and then..."
"That night on the tower."
Malfoy nodded. "That night on the tower."
"And in all this time since, you never used an Unforgivable? Not even to defend yourself?" Malfoy shook his head. "Then what have you been doing for the past eighteen years? If you did nothing wrong..."
Malfoy grinned, but there was no humor in his expression. "Because you've been right about me all along." He drew nearer, until he was as close to the barrier as he could get, mere inches from Harry, and looked him directly in the eye. "I've been on the run all this time because I am -- because I was -- afraid."
Harry staggered under the weight of Malfoy's admission. "S-Sorry?"
"Don't make me repeat myself. Once in a lifetime is enough for me to say something like that to you."
"I don't understand," Harry said. "Why now?"
"It's like I told you: I knew you weren't ready to hear it. Even now you find it incredible." He folded his arms over his chest. "See, Potter, you've always been so damn sure of yourself. Everything is black and white to you. It was the same with my father, only he didn't wear his convictions on his sleeve the way you do. He was prepared to compromise his morals if he found it necessary for survival." He turned and walked back towards the window. "You call it cowardice. I call it convenience."
Harry squinted at Malfoy, trying to make sense of what he was saying. "So you're saying you came back now because it's convenient?"
Malfoy's hollow laugh echoed off the stone walls of his cell. "I'd hardly call my present situation 'convenient'," he said. He chuckled again. "No, definitely not convenient. But in the end, it was the right thing to do."