099 Author's Choice
Title: Fix You
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: LuciusxNarcissa
Main character: Draco
Prompt: 099.Author's Choice
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3,136
Draco sat on the rug in front of his father’s desk. He played with a toy dragon and a few blocks, building castles for the beasts like he loved to do so much. It was a great comfort for him to be around his father, though there wasn’t much in the little prince’s life he needed protection from. He was a very small child living in the lap of luxury with two loving parents and a large house. Even if he never left the grounds of Malfoy Manor, he would have everything he needed to live a happy and successful life. Just having the last name ‘Malfoy’ entitled a person to wealth and success even if they were a shabby wizard, and that was just unheard of. Draco looked up to his father like a hero, a superhero who could do no wrong.
Lucius was scratching away at a letter, trying to delay a bill he didn’t want passed in the courts. He finished the letter and blew on the ink to dry it. He surveyed it, his reading glasses perched on the end of his slender nose, before rolling it up to take to post. He hadn’t given much attention to his son being in the room with him, as he had been so abnormally quiet. Usually Draco chatted up a storm, asking questions, but he was content to sit and play with his toys in the large office. Lucius tucked the note away into his pocket and picked his son up from the rug. Draco still held his little dragon and held it out to show to his father.
“See Father, he likes you,” Draco said, putting the toy on his father’s shoulder. Lucius kissed his little son on the forehead. Draco hugged him tightly.
“I’m very glad,” Lucius commented as the dragon curled up on his robes. “We will have to go to a dragon reservation one of these days. Real dragons are so big they couldn’t walk down the hallway.”
“Their wings are too big!” Draco exclaimed, holding his arms out. “The portraits would be most displeased if we had a dragon in the house.”
“I would be more worried about your mother,” Lucius said. “I will take you to see dragons very soon.”
This sounded like the greatest idea ever to a five-year-old; going to see real dragons with his Daddy. Lucius set Draco down and the young boy followed him to send off the post to the Minister.
---
It was always a treat to get a package from home, even if his mother sent him treats every other week. It was the reminder that his parents cared to send him anything that really mattered to him. Even if he was sick of all the teachers with their preferential treatment of the Gryffindors at least his parents still liked him best. There hadn’t been many moments in his life that he had wished for brothers and sisters because it would be most undesirable for another child to steal his attention. This week, his mother had enclosed fewer sweets and instead there was a small, rectangular package inside. He removed it from its surroundings of brownies, cupcakes, licorice wands, and mint chip fudge (which the surrounding Slytherins eyed longingly) and pulled a letter from beneath the ribbons.
Draco,
There are many things going on now that I wish I could tell you. Times are changing, all for the better. I must be brief now, but will give you all the details this summer. Keep this present safe, as it’s very important. I thought you would like to have it on hand as a reminder of where you come from.
Enjoy the rest of the Triwizard Tournament… it’s such an experience to witness, although I am displeased with the restrictions. You should have been the Hogwarts champion. I am impressed with your last set of marks. Excellent job. You’ll be a Prefect next year, I know it.
Keep yourself out of trouble!
Dad
PS- Your mother says hello and sends her love.
Draco thought it was amusing that the last line was written in his mother’s hand. He felt a hundred eyes on himself as he turned the package over in his hands. He could tell it was a book, but it was quite small, just the size of his hand. He tore off the plain wrappings and discovered it was a very old journal. On the inside cover read the name Lucius Hypericon Malfoy, his great grandfather. The pages were yellowed with age, the edges wrinkled and torn with age. The leather of the cover was tattered and dark, but proved to hold a great deal of wisdom beneath it. If Draco had looked up to his father, Lucius had looked up to his grandfather from whom he got his name. Draco understood the significance of the book and tucked it away in his robe pocket for later reading.
---
It had happened; his father had been caught in the Ministry of Magic. His mother had awoken him with an owl in the middle of the night. The story inside the rolled up parchment was enough to make him feel ill. He swallowed back tears, crumbling up the letter and tossing it into the rubbish bin. How could he do it? How could he be so foolish as to get caught? How could he abandon his family? Draco was furious thinking of the whole ordeal. He had never been caught before. His mother had told him of all the nights she sat up waiting for him to return and being so relieved when he would come back… but how did she feel when it was a Ministry official at the door instead of her beloved husband?
Draco hopped off his bed and retreated to the bathroom, bolting the door and casting a silencing charm towards the outside. He slid down against the tile floor and crossed his arms over his knees. There was no use being angry, the rational part of his brain said, but he was so upset that reason had left him. Tomorrow would be hell. It would be all over the prophet that the patriarch of Britain’s most powerful family was behind bars for trespassing in the Department of Ministries with the title “Death Eater” stamped above his picture. With the opinions and remarks of the other students set aside, it would be the realization that would be the most painful factor. It was Potter again who had played the hero and slammed his father in jail. It was all Potter’s doing…
A surge of hate welled up in Draco and he took to his feet. He kicked the wood stalls of the toilets hard, imagining it was Potter’s face instead of a door. He would curse him if he met him right now. After screaming his lungs out and kicking and punching everything in reach, he retired to his private Prefect quarters and stared at the ceiling, numb, until he fell asleep.
---
Narcissa had been called to pick up Lucius’s wand at the Ministry; she had brought Draco along for emotional support. There was a great deal of paperwork to be filled out before they could obtain it and Draco had volunteered to do it for his mother. She had been worse off than he could have imagined. She hardly ate and was extremely touchy, but how could he expect her to be any different? The two of them had been married for nearly twenty years and her sister had been locked up for thirteen before she was released. Narcissa sat in the uncomfortable waiting room chair next to her son, far too old for his age, as he scratched out information on the paperwork, asking her now again for tidbits he didn’t know on his own.
When they were finally able to turn in the extensive paperwork, the man brought the familiar wand concealed in the cane to the Malfoys. Narcissa reached out to grab it as if it was a ghost, but Draco reached out as well.
“May I?” Draco asked. Narcissa nodded and the man handed Draco his father’s wand. He held the wand he had coveted all of his life, a symbol of power when held by his father. It seemed like a cursed object and a piece of him at the same time. Holding it meant his father was wandless. His father was stripped of his powers and honor like a Muggle. It disgusted him.
---
His mother had cried when he took the mark. She told their Lord it was because she was so proud, but Draco knew otherwise. He wished she wouldn’t; he was chosen to carry out the most secret of tasks. If he succeeded, he would be honored above all, exalted by the Dark Lord. He had said that if Draco was able to get the Death Eaters into the castle there would be a way for him to get Lucius out of Azkaban. This was enough motivation for Draco to get to work immediately when he got to school. He was excited to begin his mission, which made the train ride to Hogwarts excruciatingly long. The sooner he fixed the cabinet, the sooner he would receive his honor. The sooner he killed Dumbledore, the sooner he would see his father.
He stood from his seat and opened his trunk to observe the contents. His father’s wand and cane sat atop his clothing. He locked the trunk and sat back down. He needed the reminder.
---
He had invested hours upon weeks working on the cabinet and trying to curse Dumbledore but every attempt turned up empty. It had seemed so simple when he had received the assignment but now whenever he looked at Dumbledore he became nauseated. All of the hours he had spent on the cabinet had given him back very little progress. It was late February and he was getting impatient. Letters from his mother had revealed that his Aunt Bellatrix was frustrated with the amount of time it was taking. It wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t been given a manual on how to fix such a dark item. There wouldn’t be any books in the library to tell him how to keep the items from getting stuck or splinched. If anything went wrong, he and his parents would be killed. Because of this, he had to make sure things would go right the first time… there would be no second time.
Exhausted from being stuck in the Room of Requirement for hours on end, Draco left the cabinet behind, dragging himself down the flights of stairs towards the Slytherin dormitories. He got down five levels before he needed to stop. Though he had lost weight since returning to Hogwarts, he felt terribly heavy. He walked in the first door he saw and realized immediately that it was a girls’ bathroom. At this time of night, it didn’t really matter; it was well past curfew. He walked over to the mirrors and took the first good look at himself in a long time. His pale blonde hair was long and unkempt, his eyes were framed by dark circles, and he had no coloring in his face. He looked like a skeleton and this mission was turning him into one. He felt tears running down his cheeks; he hadn’t realized he had begun to cry. He felt like his soul was being extracted from his body. Replacing the sorrow with anger, he punched the mirror with all of his strength. The glass shattered and fell, emitting a symphony of tiny shatters that reverberated in the stone room. Glass shards were imbedded in his skin and the blood began to seep from the wounds. He couldn’t feel it anymore.
---
He was a different person entirely when he returned home. His mother embraced him, holding him warmly and not wanting to let him go. He felt so distant from her anymore, but perhaps he was just shaken by the previous night’s events. The house looked exactly the same as it had when he left it last, but it felt strange to be there. His mother was fussing over him immediately, telling him he looked terrible and needed to eat and get some sleep. The last thing he wanted to do was sleep, though. He had been at a Death Eater meeting and he was thankful that he wasn’t punished for Snape finishing the job, though he wished he had been commended more for getting everyone inside. The Dark Lord had looked at him and said his father would be out soon; that was what it was all about anyway, right?
He felt hollow. As he lay in bed that night he saw Dumbledore’s face clearly at the top of that tower. He had never expected to point his wand at someone to kill them and have them talk to him so kindly. Though his mother had forced him to eat, he felt an incredible sinking feeling in his stomach still. If he hadn’t felt so paralyzed he may have gotten up to vomit. Maybe Dumbledore was right… maybe he wasn’t a murderer.
---
There had been rumors about a breakout, but he couldn’t get his hopes up. There had been talk before but those attempts had been shot down. When Snape had asked for his father’s wand, however, he knew this one was the real thing. It had been days since he had heard anything and he was on edge waiting. He wanted so badly for his mother to regain the light she had in her eyes when her husband was near. He wanted her to stop suffering and stop wondering. The stress was taking a toll on her as it had on him.
The Dark Lord had called them all to a meeting and decided to hold it in the drawing room of the Malfoy house. He and his mother, along with his dreadful Aunt Bellatrix had gotten the room ready, erecting a long table in the center of the room and pushing all of the regular furniture aside. Narcissa decided it was best to remove the family portrait from above the fireplace and put up a large mirror instead. Draco had to agree with her decision; it wasn’t the atmosphere for family touches.
It was true; the prisoners had been brought back from Azkaban. It pained him how he could not look at his father when he arrived. He had to keep his eyes focused directly in front of him and keep his thoughts clear. This was rather more difficult, as his brain seemed to be fighting for the right to think everything he felt. He reported on his most recent Muggle killing mission and kept quiet for the rest of the meeting. When the Dark Lord asked him to fetch his mother, he nearly jumped out of his skin in surprise.
He couldn’t find the words to tell his mother that his father had returned. In reality, he couldn’t believe it. He brought her to the room and stood still beside her until the meeting ended. Now the Dark Lord would be staying in their home. At least it would feel safer with the Patriarch installed once again.
After the meeting ended, the three Malfoys didn’t dare to move until all had left. The Dark Lord had left with Bellatrix, meaning it was only them in the large house. Narcissa moved first, walking slowly, almost cautiously towards her husband. He met her halfway and caught her in his arms, holding her as she wept. She kept repeating, “I can’t believe it… I missed you so much… I love you.”
Lucius looked up at Draco, looking remorseful. Narcissa stepped out of his embrace, still holding his hand protectively. Without saying anything, Draco ran forward and embraced his father. Lucius and Narcissa both surrounded him and for the first time in his life, Draco had seen his father cry.
---
They returned to Malfoy Manor after being released from the Hogwarts Great Hall. The Ministry would contact them as soon as the bodies were cleared from the castle, as they had agreed to cooperate. Potter had vouched for them. There was a chance they could avoid further imprisonment. The house would have to be cleaned to rid the feeling of death surrounding them, but it was just a relief for the three of them to have returned virtually unscathed.
It was over; this time it was for good. Lucius stood silently by the tall French windows in the dining room, looking out over the estate. His hand rested on the glass and he stood alone. Narcissa had gone to get ready for bed, and Draco had been wandering the halls, looking at the portraits and ignoring their inquiries about what had happened. He passed the open door to the dining room, but retreated as he noticed his father standing inside. Draco walked in the large room and stood by his father at the glass.
Lucius had noticed his son’s presence before he was standing beside him. “I don’t believe I told you enough, Draco, how proud I am of you,” Lucius said in a low, quiet voice. “As I watched you grow, I couldn’t believe that anything so beautiful and wonderful could be my son. I may have been hard on you sometimes but it was because I wanted you to grow up to be the best man you could be.”
“I know, Father,” Draco replied just as quietly. He tucked his hands behind his back.
“Truly, Draco. I thought about you every day I was in Azkaban, just hoping that I had helped raise you well enough that you could take care of your mother in case I didn’t return. I hoped that you had learned how to be a discerning, proper, and free-thinking young man. I didn’t want to think that you could be swayed by people and follow what everyone else was doing. I wanted you to have a mind of your own,” he swallowed, “and I know you have. You may have followed the same nauseating path I chose (he looked at his Dark Mark forever visible below the edge of his pushed up sleeves) but you did it for your own reasons, I hope.”
“I did it for you, Father,” Draco replied. “I wanted to make you proud.”
“There’s nothing you could do that would make me ashamed of you,” Lucius said, his voice just above a whisper. “I’ve loved you since the day you were born. You’re my only son.”
Lucius hugged Draco tightly. He was still the hero Draco had looked up to all those years ago and was the father his son aspired to be one day.