A/N: Legacies is a prequel to Sketches and is set in November before that story (So, Draco's seventh year, Ginny's sixth). This will make sense if you haven't read Sketches. If you have read Sketches, I should apologise for not answering any of the actual questions asked about the story, but rather writing something impulsive that no one actually cares about.
In my mind, canon is something that happens to other people. That being said, this universe is true to canon through most of Order of the Phoenix. After that... well, I really stopped paying attention. I know Umbridge happened, and Sectumsempra may have happened, and there's a quest in the Trio's seventh year... but Voldemort is defeated somewhere in February (so after this story, but before Sketches).
I have no beta, no self-respect, and no real amount of shame. If any of my typos/mistakes catch your eye, let me know. I will correct them. xx
Draco has always seen something haunting in de La Tour's candles. He was a master the melancholy entwined within a peripheral darkness — always catching something vast and eternal in the blackness that framed his paintings. This particular one was a simple thing of a skull and a Christian bible on a roughly hewn table top, illuminated by a candle casting a harsh yellow glow, lighting up the lost details of the room — almost. If Draco stared at it long enough, perhaps he'd be able to discern the shapes and the features hidden in the blackness. If he stared down at where it was resting on the ground, in the dirt, for long enough... There had to be something there, something in the darkness to make sense of, something just out of —
"Watch it, Malfoy!" a short, balding man snapped from behind him before swinging the large rolled tapestry he had purloined from Lucius's study right into Draco's shoulder. Draco stumbled, heart in his throat, as his foot came down right on the centre of "Still Life with Skull."
The canvas didn't rip, but Draco did fall in his haste to get off of it, scrambling to his knees in the grass on the manor's front lawn. In utter dismay, he took in the tear in the paint, the candle almost completely destroyed, marred grey canvas staring back out at him.
"Fucking hell, Kirby," another of the ministry's cads snapped, "that painting was valued at 80,000 galleons."
Kirby's laugh was an ugly thing as he sneered down at Draco's prone form. "Just a drop in the bucket, Tom."
Draco continued to stare at the ruined canvas, only flinching slightly as Kirby kicked a wad of mud in his direction before wandering off.
"Just be more careful, for fuck's sake. And leave that little shit alone. We've been getting enough hell from his bitch mother, we hardly need add to the list of complaints."
Draco tuned out the voices out of sheer necessity as he slouched on the lawn, taking in the piles of furniture and antiques and art works scattered around as the ministry officials continued to catalogue and cart them away.
They had left him alone, for the most part, since he had arrived this morning, an odd insult or barb tossed his way, but it had been easy to ignore them. What would he have done anyway? He was helpless here; powerless and worthless to his mother who had begged him to come home. For what? His father was dead — gone up in literal flames with enough witnesses to implicate himself and his whole family a thousand times over.
Draco hadn't even been able to see much of his mother, she'd been too busy fighting to hold on to anything she could — lobbying fruitlessly for candlesticks and fine porcelain and Persian rugs. He couldn't do anything — not when his father had left them like this. In ruin.
How dare he? It wasn't fair. Draco gritted his teeth and trembled. It wasn't fair. It was all folly, for nothing, of nothing, netting nothing. His eyes fell back to the things hidden in the dark, covered now by scattered blades of grass and dirt.
What was it Lucius had said once?
"Sometimes, Muggles get lucky, Draco. Sometimes, like La Tour's occasional moments of perception, they manage to say something worth hearing. But these are things they speak into a void. They are totally unaware that we, Wizards, higher beings, are actually here to hear them."
"Higher beings," Draco scoffed to himself, "You were a fucking imbecile, Lucius."
He sat there for a long time, the sun sinking towards the hills over his shoulder, as more and more precious family heirlooms were taken away.
"Thieves," he wanted to scream. "Greedy bastards!" "These things are part of my life, mine and my mother's and we should not be punished for his sins. They belong to us to do with as we see fit. He belongs with us — it is a Malfoy's responsibility to punish those who…"
Even in his head, he trailed off, watching as more and more of the few remaining goods on the lawn were taken.
"What'll we do with this, then?" Kirby asked, indicating the ruined canvas on the ground.
Draco's hands shook as he fought the urge to beg for it.
The official in charge hefted an irritated sigh. "Take it back to the office. We might be able to repair the damage, but, if not, we'll be able to dispose of it for them."
His last words were directed with a sneer at Draco, as if he could see into his head and tell how much, exactly, Draco wanted it. Wanted to hang it's ruined visage on the wall as a reminder of that conversation years ago, his father's hand on his shoulder, a slight smirk on his lips as he appreciated something created by "lesser beings."
He wanted to hold on to it. Hold on to the place it had hung outside of his father's study — that hallway where the two of them had stood in contemplation for hours. He wondered if the Kandinskys and the Manets and that one Chagall were gone now too. That tiny chamber of Muggle greatness.
"You can count the great things they've done on your own fingers, Draco. This is it. The extent of it. Silly, when you think about it."
"Surely they've done other great things," Draco had said, at the time thinking only of his books on Muggle warfare. "Machine guns and land mines and Hiroshima."
His father had replied with a long noise of contemplation. "It is far easier to destroy than create — remember that, Draco. And do not confuse great impact with greatness. Muggles confuse the two all the time, rationalising and justifying their atrocities as a means to an end. We are more than that. We see more than that."
At the time, Draco had chortled, listening to his father talk about a better world without Muggles to muddy the lands, likening them to little more than cockroaches or mosquitoes — always taking with no conception of giving back or savouring. Draco had understood his father's world view, at the time.
Now though, as his fingers curled unconsciously around the frame of a long dead painting, he only recognised that baselessness in the men taking it from him. His skin tore as the notched wooden frame was wrenched from his clutched hands, and he fell forward once agin, weakened incredibly by the day.
"Please," he murmured towards the ground. His head bowed and his skin flushed, he prostrated himself before them.
Kirby and the others laughed. "What was that, you little pissant?"
His jaw clenched and he bit back a mournful sob. "Please, leave it."
The canvas hit the ground with a thunk and a laugh, a boot following Draco's earlier path, grinding grit and mud further into the work.
"Sure, Malfoy," a laughing voice said, "keep it."
Every flake of centuries old oil paint that crumbled away drew a shiver from between his shoulders, but he refused to move from his hands and knees, refused to look up at them or beg again.
Only when they had given up and finally left, did Draco move to pull the canvas closer to him, dry sobs wracking his body.
His mother found him there much later, still clutching the image, and she kneeled over him silently, her tears soaking his hair, her shoulder absorbing his grief.
They did things differently, his mother and he, differently than most people, he imagined. The following day was quiet, their solicitors finally managing to bar the Manor of all 'guests,' and he was allowed to sleep in. It was an apology, a gesture of empathy and understanding said without words.
When he went down to lunch at noon — his mother was absent, another gesture, and he went in search of whatever was keeping her from food.
Eventually, he found her in the conservatory, the ruined de La Tour resting on her worktable. Scattered around were hundreds of tiny paint flakes, and he could see where she was painstakingly gluing them back onto the surface.
He watched her for a long moment, relishing the look on her face of utter concentration — it was the most at peace he had seen her since he had left for his third year. She was chewing on her lip and utterly disregarding the glue on her fingertips as one of her hands manipulated her wand, the other a cautious brush.
"Mother," he said, "You should come down to lunch." I do not blame you.
She sighed and lowered her hands. "Thank you for saving this much of it." This was not your fault.
She set her brush in the tray, standing carefully, but did not immediately go and wash her hands. I love you.
He reached out and clasped her sticky hands in his. I love you, too.
"We will make it through this, Mother."
"I know," she said with a wry smile, all trace of tears gone. "We are Malfoys."
Anyone else pointing that out would have earned a flinch on this particular day. But not her. When Narcissa Malfoy, née Black, said it, it was a statement of endurance, not of pride.
He followed her back to the dining room at a sedate pace. Pride was earned, not endowed. Sometimes, Draco knew, you had to give it all away to gain any of it back.
He couldn't help glancing over his shoulder at the image left behind, the illusion ruined, but the candle slowly reappearing after hours of his mother's steady hand.
They were Malfoys; they endured first and foremost; they had a right to their pride. But if others didn't know that, it merely looked like prejudice or, worse, arrogance.
His father was dead now — but long before, he had already forgotten every important thing he had imparted unto Draco. And now he was dead. Draco could give up a little more than just that, he hoped.
Narcissa Malfoy slept in a bed far too large and far too soft for her. Lucius had adored his luxury, craving all things expensive, all foods rich, and all texture softer than clouds. She had laughed once, the first time she had seen his closet, and asked if he ever forgot he was wearing under garments because they were softer and slicker than air.
Lucius had smiled wickedly at her and tackled her onto their bed. Then he had ordered similar sets for her in every colour possible.
"You're a Malfoy, now," he had explained, "even the best is only occasionally good enough for you."
"I was a Black first," she had replied, pushing his hair back before surging upwards for a kiss, "I bet all studies show that we do things more extravagantly."
Their shared laughter had been a familiar sound in the bed chamber. That and his arms around her middle, his presence at her back, had made her sleep easier. Even in the last few years, with things changing so rapidly, that had remained. This room, this sanctuary, had become her safest place.
Now, alone, it was too big a bed. Too soft for sleeping.
She wandered through the chamber, trying not to look at the empty closet on the other side of the room. It had been stripped of much, his clothes and jewellery and personal effects confiscated first. Only her fight had spared his most beloved possessions, and, now, it was hard to banish the idea of him laughing at her.
"Let them take it all," he would have said to her, all while yelling and cursing anyone who dared to try.
Tears welled in her eyes as she sank onto the edge of her bed. She knew it would be time to get up soon, to welcome the guests Draco had invited as best she could, but she didn't know how to rise, to walk away, to face another challenge too great to comprehend.
"Let them take it all, Petal," she could practically hear him say. "They can only take the things away. They can't take your spirit, you heart. You can defeat this."
She tasted the salt of her own tears, and she missed him with every empty space left in her.
"Goddamn it , Lucius. Goddamn you."
Laughter echoed in their half-empty bedchamber, and she ached for him.
Draco settled into his seat in the Gold Room, waiting as patiently as possible for Missy to show in their guests. His mother sat across from him in a chair that belonged in the library, next to the waiting tea cart. She looked drawn, the black of her mourning garb making her look even paler than usual. Draco wore blue, bright and unforgiving.
He couldn't tell how she felt about this plan, how willing she actually was to entertain this risk, but neither of them had slept much, and neither of them could think of anything better.
Eventually the door opened, Missy's small form leading a small group into the parlour. He stood once the three of them were across the threshold.
"Mr. Shacklebolt," he said, holding out his hand in greeting. The returned handshake was dry and rough but welcoming enough. "Thank you for coming."
"Of course," Shacklebolt replied. "This is Bill Weasley, a Ministry curse breaker, and Emmaline Bones, a solicitor, as requested."
More than a little relieved that Shacklebolt had understood his request and that these were all Order members, Draco shook each hand as prompted, and perfunctory niceties were exchanged between the five of them. "We're just waiting for the family solicitors now."
"Missy, tea," Mother spoke from her seat as their guests arranged themselves on the assorted chairs.
Cups were distributed as an uncomfortable silence descended.
"So," Shacklebolt finally said, "What brings us here?"
Draco straightened and waited for his mother to make her opening salvo. She remained silent, however, and a brief glance revealed that she was watching him keenly. Her smile was as sharp as a razor's edge as she nodded lightly at him.
"My mother and I would like to negotiate for the return of our family's heirlooms."
Shacklebolt shifted uncomfortably. "Our seizure of property is with the right of the Ministry in light of Lucius Malfoy's crimes."
Draco smirked grimly; that wasn't exactly true, but…A ghost's touch rested on his shoulder, and he found his resolve. It was time to give it all away — again.
"Perhaps. But perhaps access to items that might be of more value to you, such as some of my father's more…controversial collections, or even his personal journals and plans, could be exchanged for seized heirlooms like the Malfoy crystal and my great grandmother's silver."
That got their attention, and Draco had to repress a smug smile as he watched Shacklebolt's hands tighten and the Weasley's face drain of colour.
It wasn't the only card he held in his hand, but access to a trusted Death Eater's plans? That was his trump.
He met his mother's eyes as Missy waved in their last guests, the Malfoy family solicitor and the Gringotts' Goblin that managed the family's estate. Her face gave nothing away to a stranger, but he could see her hidden sorrow, her relief.
No one bothered to greet the new arrivals, as the Ministry's representatives leaned towards one another and whispered furtively.
Finally, Shacklebolt turned back to Draco and said, "What do you propose, Mr. Malfoy?"
Draco closed his eyes for the briefest moments. His father was Mr. Malfoy. Who the fuck was he?
"Our solicitors have drawn up some rudimentary paperwork."
It wasn't everything. There was no way that Draco could convince the Ministry to pay for damages — and even if there had been, the Ministry was at war, and it wasn't necessarily a war he could afford to let them lose, not anymore — and some things had already been "allocated" or "lost." Likely, they had found their way onto Ministry mantles or into the homes of opportunistic employees.
There was also no leverage Draco could apply to get the team that had carted everything away fired, an idea he had lobbied for rather dramatically. His mother had chortled derisively at him from behind her teacup.
But, in the end, three days later, he showed Weasley and his team into the dungeons of the Manor, and the curse breakers' faces lit up like kids on Christmas. He took Shacklebolt and his "unofficial experts," i.e. Order Members, into the hidden rooms of the library, and left them to pour over his father's personal collections.
He and his mother had already scoured everything and removed what they wanted to keep. It was a depressingly small pile: a few rare books, some cursed family heirlooms, nothing at all, really.
Finally, he found his way to his father's study, bare but for the monstrosity of a desk that took up most of the room and his parents' wedding portrait. He wasn't surprised the first team had left them behind. The desk probably weighed more than an elephant. Even his father had hated it, but could never figure out a way to remove it without destroying it. And the portrait couldn't be removed from the wall by just anyone.
Draco didn't bother to hide his malicious smirk; the ministry had taken everything they could from this room, but actually found very little. He meticulously worked his way around the space — pressing hidden buttons and whispering passwords to reveal the hidden drawers, the wall safe, the floor safe, the cubby behind the bookshelf, the false back of the desk — all while trying to avoid looking at the remaining painting.
He slumped on the rickety replacement stool at the desk, and rested his head in his hands. Despite the fact that the room had been stripped almost bare, he could still feel Lucius's presence in here. Not the father that he wanted to remember, but the father he had become, angry and paranoid with that vicious edge of panic. Looking around, all Draco could see was evidence of the poison that was threatening to eat his family, his name, his mother's name, from the inside out.
Which was when his mother walked into the room.
"Everyone seems quite happy with the deal you've laid out, Draco."
He snorted. "Every single Malfoy that has ever lived will be waiting for me at the gates of hell to skin me to the bone."
She pursed her lips at him with reproof in her eyes. "There have been one or two outliers in the family's history, Draco. I'm sure not every Malfoy is in hell."
He chortled lightly and stood.
"Are you happy?" He cringed at the question, taking in the black she still wore from head to toe, but couldn't think of a way to rephrase it.
"I am proud."
He closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry," he said softly.
She frowned at him again. "Don't apologise, Draco. It does something wretched to your brow."
This time we was the one pursing his lips at her. She just shrugged.
"We should get you into hiding until the war is over."
"Absolutely not."
"Mother—"
"Your plan makes it necessary that I stay and maintain some sort of dignity if we are to keep this hidden."
Your plan. Draco flinched internally. He knew he may have damned them both.
She placed her hand on his arm and squeezed. Don't, she didn't say. "We should start sorting through all of this, though. The sooner we find something of import, the sooner this will all be over."
She walked over to the hidden drawer, the same one he had opened first, and began emptying its contents. Draco silently followed suit.
It took a few hours, interrupted only by Missy bringing them some tea, but finally, almost everything that had been secreted away by Lucius was piled on the desk or the floor.
It was a lifetime of Lucius's work pursuing madness, and Draco and his mother both were slowly folding into themselves as they sorted their way through this deliberate betrayal.
Draco couldn't tell who betrayed whom any longer, though. He had looked at maps of Muggle towns, journals filled with potential scenarios, records of his father's experiments in curses, a thousand small reasons to feel justified. Instead, it just heaped onto his remorse.
His mother clearly felt the same, as she had paused over one of the journals Draco had set aside already. It was filled with Lucius's cramped handwriting, detailing Death Eater meetings, Voldemort's movements, and his own theories and strategies. Somewhere in that book, Draco knew, was a version of his final plan that didn't get him killed, but Draco couldn't bear to read it.
She was blinking away tears when she looked up at him, she found him looking back and her gaze went steely. "This will never become part of the public record, right?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.
He shook his head. "Kingsley assured me that anything overly-personal will be kept in possession of the Order alone."
"And you trust him?"
Draco exhaled sharply. "Father didn't leave us the option not to."
Not for the first time, Draco found himself wondering why his mother agreed to this plan. There were a lot of secrets spilled out across the ground. Secrets that could destroy them both entirely. But, he thought with a tiny hint of optimism he unflinchingly tried to squelch, it could also free them.
She held his gaze for a long moment and then nodded once. "Fine."
It didn't feel like that big of a betrayal after all, to finally turn towards the painting on the wall and contemplate it. He didn't look at the solemn faces of his parents or the careful rendering of the Malfoy gardens they stood before. Rather, he was pondering what could possibly be left to find behind it.
"I don't know how to do this, Draco," his mother said softly.
He didn't look at her as he responded. "We do it the same way we've done everything for the past few years. Together. Just the two of us."
She nodded, blinking away what Draco thought might have been tears. But the further they'd delved, the more clear it had become, Lucius had been lost to them both for a lot longer than they'd thought.
They placed their hands on the sides of the portrait, and with a small flash, it came easily off the wall. The small safe behind it opened with their touch, but it held surprisingly little.
Hesitantly, Draco pulled the documents inside out. There were three folders and a ledger — a copy of the Malfoy family accounts.
Inside the first were the deeds to the Malfoy properties, including several that Draco had no inkling of. The second held their birth certificates and other paperwork that proved they existed. The third held Lucius's will and two small envelopes: one for Draco and one for his mother. His hands were shaking as he removed them. Narcissa gasped as she pulled the last item from the safe: Lucius's wedding ring. Draco shuddered with something larger and far harder to address than remorse as he met his Mother's eyes.
For the first time this week, she looked something other than wan. Her face twisted into something ugly, and she cursed. "That bastard."
My Dearest Narcissa,
Please know—I did not want to leave you.
My life — and yours, and then our life together — has been riddled with a darkness that I never sought to squelch. I have never sought out to possess the bright or the beautiful because I already had you, my own personal star, one that deigned to grace my life for too brief a moment. I followed you home each and every night, for you are my true north, my white dove, and all the bright and beautiful that I could possibly want.
Joy is what you gave me, and everything I ever wanted was to sustain that. Everything that I have ever done was to earn that.
I am sorry, to a certain degree, that I could not fulfil both my desire to give you everything and my wish to stay with you always.
And I am thankful for every moment that we shared, for the life that we had, together. I am thankful for the son that we raised — that beautiful and bright creation that we brought into the world.
I know that I do not need to ask you to watch out for Draco; you have always been better at looking after the things you love than I could ever hope to be. But, please forgive me for asking so anyway. He is too much of the best of us and too little of the worst. I fear for him in ways that I would never fear for you. You and I are sharpness, aimed for cutting out the parts of the world that do not agree, but he is a sharpness aimed for paring himself down to fit into a world undeserving.
There is no part of me that didn't love every part of you — both of you.
Please forgive me for leaving you. Please know that I didn't want to.
There is an account with Gorricks' in your name, as well as one in Draco's, in case the very worst should happen. The authentication code is the day we met and the day Draco's magic first presented.
All that is left of me,
Yours,
Lucius Malfoy
Narcissa watched silently as her son shook hands again with Kingsley Shacklebolt, key member of the Order of the Phoenix, rising star in the established bureaucracy, and supposedly incorruptible politician. Lucius had told her once, with an equal measure of disdain and respect, that Shacklebolt would be the one to lead the Wizarding world forward if Dumbledore won his war.
He was an interesting choice to reach out to; and Narcissa couldn't fault Draco's decision to negotiate this deal with him.
She watched as Draco then shook hands with a few other do-gooders, internally rolling her eyes as they thanked him for his contribution to the war effort. Draco didn't care about the war, Draco cared about her.
She watched as they left, watched as Draco's face shifted in the light, she watched.
Draco didn't care about the war, right?
But he seemed lighter, less exhausted, less haunted in the wake of that meaningless gratitude, and Narcissa paused.
Lucius had loved Tom Riddle once. Had loved the power and the destruction, had loved the cause. He had tripped down that path as a mere teenager, and continued to lose himself in the thrall of Dark Magic. Narcissa had never blinked. She loved Lucius, all of him, and had never looked back. But he had kept them, her and Draco both, sheltered from the worst of it. That much had become astonishingly obvious over the last few days.
She had no misconceptions about her late husband; he had not been a good man — that was not why she had loved him. But he had been good to her and Draco. He had done so much for them; he had done all of it for them.
And that had been a part of it, hadn't it? It was a heady notion — knowing that she burned brightly for someone so cold, so powerful, knowing that he loved her and Draco above everything else.
Draco, however…Draco who was turning towards her with a weary half-smile on his face, Draco who loved sunlight and art and music, Draco who had cast away his father's legacy without a second thought — Draco was a good man. Wanted to be.
Narcissa's heart broke a little for her son. She had always known he was smarter than she and Lucius; but she had never realised that they had raised an optimist.
She raised her hands for him to grasp, but then thought better of it, and wrapped him in a hug as she used to when he was very small.
She and Lucius had loved him so fiercely, so ardently, so differently than how they both had been raised.
She stepped away from him after a long moment. His eyes were wet, but he was still holding on to that small smile, that satisfaction that he had done something right.
Here he was, Draco, the only good thing that she and Lucius had ever created. Something wholly different, something far greater than the sum of their broken pieces. He kissed her cheek and bade her a good night and then left.
And Narcissa sat in the Gold Room, Draco's favourite room, with all the furniture and ephemera replaced, and she wept.
For the first time in a week, she was not sad. But for the first time since she had met Lucius, she was truly terrified.
It's over, Draco said to himself, as he sank into his bed.
It had taken two more days — two more days of Order members traipsing around his ancestral home, prodding at the memories he wanted to lock away, hauling out books, objects, and almost all of the contents of his father's study — but finally, they were gone. He had hired a private company to handle their reclamation, and, slowly, things had been reappearing as if they had never been gone at all.
In the quieter moments, of which there had been few, he wondered if it was worth it. His father would have hated him for it, would have yelled and screamed, he thinks, for even thinking it. His father had always loved the material things, but had placed duty and honour and family far above that. He would have razed the manor before trading the Malfoy heritage for a few cushions.
Draco's mind flittered back to one particular book in his father's study — a book detailing the particulars of a few nasty curses — and the notes scribbled in the margins about the effectiveness of each and experimental adjustments made to vary slightly the results.
That was his Malfoy heritage.
He knew that he and his mother would never get a blank slate. Knew that perhaps they didn't deserve one, but… but if they had to give up something, if he had to betray his name, he'd rather give up the ugly, hidden parts, scrape out the poison, and try to build on what was left behind.
He closed his eyes, wondering if sleep would ever come again, and tried not to cry.
He did not want to think about what the Malfoy name meant now; he did not want to think about his own hypocrisy. He knew that the Malfoy name had been built on darkness and blood, that the paintings and settees and the baubles he had bargained for had been bought with the same barbs, trickery, and deceit he had traded away. He did not know where they could go from there.
He held on to a vague notion of emerging as something better, something decent. He held on to the idea that he and his mother could survive without the destructions that had been meted out by centuries of Malfoys. He had to think that they could do more than endure, that they could do better than to eke out whatever existence Lucius had planned for them after his death.
His eyes cast to the letter that still sat unopened on his desk.
He did not want to think of Voldemort finding out and seeking retribution. He did not want to imagine all of Shacklebolt's clever plans to keep his mother safe going awry. He did not want to rely on luck and Ministry cooperation to make this work.
He did not want to have to hope. He wanted to know.
He was exhausted. Too tired to turn off his thoughts and fall asleep. Too tired to rest. There were too many things that could go wrong.
But he couldn't stop the small voice in the back of his mind that told him: there are even more that could go right.
That thought was more dangerous than anything else he had dealt with all week.
With a last, fitful sigh, Draco rolled over and contented himself with pretending to sleep. Eventually, he hoped, it might manifest itself.
END
A/N: Georges de la Tour is a French Muggle artist that was influenced by Caravaggio and painted mostly in the baroque style.
Emmaline Bones is an original character that I like to assume is a younger sister of Amelia and Edgar Bones; as this story suggests, she is both a solicitor and a member of the Order of the Phoenix.