Chapter One: Father-Son Adventure Time
It was July and fourteen-year-old Draco was home at Malfoy Manor being an annoying turd as usual. Only this time, he was being annoying in motion.
"Father…! One of the house elves died in my room again! And now the other house elves are crying about it and I can't sleep! Father…!" Draco cry-whined as he breezed through the second floor west wing, where his father's study was located.
He made it to his father's study, knocked on the door and entered without invitation. When he did, his whining was suspended abruptly, for he stumbled upon something he never thought he'd ever see—Lucius, his father, weeping.
His father's long svelte body humped over his black wooded desk, his luscious blonde hair draped over his entire face as he shook shamefully into a pile of documents. The sight of it was stunning to Draco—he never would have guessed his father was a crier.
"Fa-father?"
Lucius stopped immediately at the sound of his son's trepid voice. He even lifted his head and greeted him.
"Draco…" He spoke, his voice raspy and raw, his eyes no longer dripping but pink and weathered nonetheless, "what are you doing up so late?"
"Um…one of the house elves died and now the others are mourning and it's keeping me up…" Draco explained quickly, no longer fixated on the fatuous problem. "What are you doing up?"
"Uh…nothing. Nothing at all." Lucius replied hurriedly. Then with a cheap smile, he added, "Just, ha, just lamenting the existence of mud bloods and blood betrayers."
Draco's face softened at his father's pathetic lie. Gently, he closed the door of the study and asked, "Father, is something the matter?" When Lucius hesitated, Draco asked with slight alarm, "Is it the Dark Lord?"
"No, no. The Dark Lord has been in an exceptional mood lately even since his Horcux-anniversary party…"
(Flash over to Voldemort, last month, wearing a paper crown that Snape made for him, as he and Snape help up Bellatrix's leg so she could perform a keg stand. Kendrick Lamar's DNA blaring in the background as the other Death Eaters also got wasted. "THIS IS THE BEST PARTY EVAH!")
"Then what is it then?" Draco pressed, openly concerned. "Is it work?"
"No."
"Is it mom?"
"No."
"Is it me?"
"Draco, it's never you. You never give me grief." Lucius denied tenderly, to the point that it made Draco feel incredibly loved in that moment.
"Then what father? I've never seen you cry. Not even when you got the letter saying Grandfather died in that freak dragon sneezing accident."
"Eh, my father was a tool." Lucius said without remorse. Then adding, "You weren't alive for my mother's death but trust me, I was a wreck during that ordeal."
"Wow, I didn't know that. Shit…"
"Draco!" Lucius scolded.
"Sorry, father, but, sugar, if you're crying like a house elf that just got hit with a frying pan something must be going on. C'mon father, you can tell me." Draco reasoned.
Lucius sighed. "Draco, while I appreciate your concern, it's not my job as a parent to emotionally burden my child with my personal problems…"
"Is this over mom banging Professor Snape?" Draco interrupted, absentmindedly.
First there was a pause. Then came the implosion. "WHAT?!"
"Shit." Draco cursed apologetically.
"DRACO!"
"I'm sorry father but I honestly thought you guys made an arrangement or something to that accord where you two didn't have to stay faithful to another."
"Why would you possibly think a husband and a wife would arrange such an adulterous commitment?" Lucius demanded.
Draco shrugged. "You and mother do have a very business-like marriage. Plus you never seem to mind nor question mother's overnight trips to Diagonalley."
Lucius' forehead scrunched with beleaguered anger. "Damnit all." He whispered to himself. Then, in a normal voice and addressing his son, he said, "Well since you already guessed your parents' married life is in partnership only…"
"Wait are you implying you guys were trying to hide that it wasn't?" Draco inquired, half-laughing half-incredulous.
"Shit up, Draco." Lucius said with a glare as he tossed over a letter to his son.
It was a short letter thus Draco was able to read it over in nearly five seconds.
"Who's Morrighan Metis and why should I give a shit-?"
"DRACO!"
"Sorry—sorry, and why should I give a…damn?"
"Damn is fine." Lucius said with a curt nod.
"Sweet…and why should I give a damn that she's getting married?"
Lucius didn't answer right away. Instead, he merely stared at the hard surface of his desk, looking as if he were resisting another onslaught of tears.
"Morrighan was—is—the love of my life. She was the one I thought I would have ended up marrying, starting a life with…She was the one I've never stopped loving or thinking or even dreaming about for the last sixteen years."
There was heavy silence in the study after his minor speech. But Draco broke it with need-to-know questions.
"Then why didn't you?" He asked plainly.
"Cowardice." Lucius stated simply. With a regretful inhale, he continued, "I didn't solely out of fear. Out of cravenness. See…Morrighan was a half-blood."
"So? So is the Dark Lord and Professor Snape and a lot of witches and wizards."
"True…But Morrighan wasn't just a half-blood. She actively protected muggles, which made her worse in the eyes of the Dark Lord."
"Protected by…legislating for them?" Draco extrapolated, assuming this mystery woman was a coworker at the Ministry of Magic.
"Son…" Lucius sighed. "Have you ever heard of a witch called 'the Squib General'?"
Draco stopped to think. He vaguely remembered overhearing Hermione Granger speaking of this person in their History of Magic class. Then he remembered charming a bunch a paper balls to fling into her hair so that it would spell out 'nerd' on the back on her head. Then he remembered high-fiving a bunch of Slytherins, then he remembered falling asleep in History class, then he remembered feeling bad for what he'd done but then he remembered getting hungry and the feeling of guilt passed.
"Uh….no?"
"The Squib General is a witch who lives on this little island, protecting squib children who were abandoned their by their parents. She created a little makeshift orphanage for them, caring for them until she would find them homes in the Muggle World. She's been successful too. Too successful. Her acts had reached the ears of the Dark Lord, who needless to say, did not approve. However, whenever he sent Death Eaters over to eradicate the island, she fought them over, all of them off, fiercely. She did it not only using magic but using the island as well, creating booby traps and her army of children to help defend themselves. It was quite remarkable…"
"Is that how you met her?" Draco inquired.
Lucius nodded, smiling vaguely. "After it became apparent that she could not be taken down, the Dark Lord decided, why not recruit her? As an ally? So one day, he sent me and Severus over to the Island to try and convince her to join the Dark Lord…We were there only a few days but…it was enough for me to fall helplessly and endlessly in love with her."
"Aww…" Draco swooned, loudly and without shame. "Father…that's so romantic! What happened afterwards?"
Lucius exhaled hard. "Well…while Morrighan refused to join us, she instead asked me to join her cause. And I was so in love with her, I almost did. I did—actually, for a few weeks. I told Severus to tell the Dark Lord that I'd been killed in a fight and to just leave me there. Severus however knew that was foolish venture. He spoke sense into me, saying, the Dark Lord would find out one day that that was a lie and my lie would not only cost my life but quite possibly her life and the life of all the children she gave everything to protect.
"I—I knew he was right. I knew I could not stay there and endanger Morrighan's life out of selfish love. So…I left. And I never went back to that island. And I never saw her again."
His story ended with the sounds of his son blubbering dramatically.
"Father that's the saddest story I've ever heard!" Draco wailed. After wiping his nose into his pajama's sleeve, Draco asked, "What are you going to do then?"
"What is there that I can do?" Lucius replied, staring down at his desk with agonizing remorse and sadness streaked across his entire face. "She's found new love…"
Draco blew a raspberry. "Just because she's getting married doesn't mean she's in love! Look at you and mother!"
(Flash over to Narcissa getting rammed from behind by an ever-greasy Potions Master)
Then, suddenly, Draco's mouth contorted into a perfect 'O', his eyes dazzled with the brilliancy of an insane idea. "Father! Father! You have to go to this wedding! You have to tell confess to her your undying love! You have to crash this wedding!"
"Son, that's ludicrous! I can't possibly spoil Morrighan's wedding day for my own narcissistic reasons!" Lucius cried out, dismayed by his son's wild thinking.
"Why not?" Draco argued. "You said it yourself you lost this lady once to your own cowardliness. Why be a pussy a second time?"
"DRACO!"
"'Pussy' is short for 'pusillanimous', father. God, not everything's a naughty word, you know."
Lucius fell into a pensive silence. His eyes paled slightly with a distant but decisive battle of benefits and losses. Finally, he looked to find his son's eyes and there was a small flash in them—hope: mischievous, reckless, preposterous hope.
"I never knew you were such a romantic, Draco." Lucius grinned.
Draco looked offended at first. "Men can love love just as much as anyone."
Lucius nodded, smiling even harder. Then he pushed himself from his chair, got from behind his desk and said with a leader's swagger, "Get your wand, son. We're not waiting for the wedding. We're going to find Morrighan tonight!"
Draco cheered, following his father. "Fuck yeah!"
"DRACO!"
"Sorry father but its adventure time now! No time for censorship!"