…1984…
He races down the stone corridors, ignoring the gloomy faces of the portraits on the wall which follow him with their cold, pale eyes, murmuring about the degeneration of the Noble and most Ancient House of Malfoy. He laughs, little feet pattering on the cold flagstones while his mother chases him, her long blond hair flying, unbound, behind her. Young as he is, he knows that she could catch him if she wanted to and he knows that she won't catch him because she wants him to think that he's faster than her. He doesn't care; it's not always about winning.
"I've got'cha!" his father laughs, leaping out from behind a four-hundred-year old tapestry and scooping him up in his arms. The long sleeves of his ash-grey robes fall down as he laughs, tossing the child into the air, before handing him to his mother, saying, "Cissy, I think we have ourselves a renegade!"
His mother, her pretty face flushed pink, smiles and holds out her arms for him to climb in but he doesn't go, not yet. He doesn't want to go to bed, he's not a baby like little Teri Greengrass, he's all of four years old and he should be allowed to go to bed at nine o'clock like Vincent and Gregory do.
He stalls for time by tracing the tattoo – he knows what a tattoo is and he thinks they're pretty even if mother doesn't – on his father's forearm. It's small and black, skull-shaped, and he wonders how he'd never noticed it before. "What's that, Daddy?" he asks innocently. "Did mother let you get a tattoo?"
Father stops laughing suddenly and the pretty rosy bloom on Mother's cheeks fades rapidly. They're both pale, suddenly, and he knows he's committed a faux pas – Daphne Greengrass is half-French and she's taught him plenty of phrases. "Sorry," he mumbles apologetically, letting mother hold him. "It's pretty," he adds quickly, trying to amend the situation even though he's never seen anything uglier than it in his whole life.
A small smile flits across his father's face and he ruffles his son's short blond hair affectionately. "It's the Dark Mark, Draco. It's a badge of honor, one that I wear with pride. Maybe one day you'll wear it too." A frown crosses mother's face as she carries him up to bed and he knows, instinctively, that she's going to have a few 'words' with father after he's asleep.
…1990…
Mother's friends have come for one of her kitty parties and he and father aren't allowed downstairs. They're spending the time leafing through old photo albums. There are baby photos of him, Father, Grandfather - he's proud that he looks so much like them -, of cold-eyed, exquisitely beautiful Grandmother, pictures of Mother as a young girl and of the Black side of his family.
"And there's your Aunt Bella," father says, a tinge of frost in his voice. "Beautiful, intelligent, staunchly loyal to her creed – the finest example of a witch you could ever hope to find. Remember that you are her nephew, Draco, that you must do great things like her." He nods obediently but he can't help but notice that his father sounds less than enthusiastic about him following in his aunt's footsteps.
"What's that on her arm?" he asks suddenly as the young woman in the picture throws back her long black hair, a sneer forming on her lovely face, and bares her forearm. A small black mark, like a cut, is etched there.
"The Dark Mark," father says absently, sitting up straight and exposing his own forearm. "Don't tell your mother," he says, showing his son the mark. "It's the sign of all us who followed He-Who-Must-Not-be-Named, enough to send a man to Azkaban now."
"Does mother have one?" he asks, interested. Mother never tells him stories about the Dark Lord and his glorious reign – it's only father and the other children he knows who do the talking. Father is usually reluctant to talk and the other children laugh at him when he asks them questions and call him names.
"No," father says, his face suddenly guarded. "Don't... well, don't discuss these things with your other friends, Draco. Perhaps with Theodore and the Greengrass girls but none of the others. They… they wouldn't understand."
"Their parents were Death Eaters?" he asks. "But why shouldn't I talk about it. Everyone else does," he adds sulkily, "And it's not like it's a bad thing – you always say it's a thing to be proud of and how it's a badge of honor…"'
"It is," father insists, "but well, you see…I mean, Draco that…" His father splutters for the first time in his memory, lost for words, his face unsure, frightened even. "You're too young to understand now," he finally finishes.
…1996…
"My Lord," his aunt whispers, bowing low to kiss the hem of the Dark Lord's robes. "He is here, my nephew Draco."
"Move, Bella." The Dark Lord's voice slices through the balmy summer air like a finely-honed knife, and Draco's breath chills in his body in fear. "Come, boy."
He glides to the front; chin raised high, mental barriers up against Legilimency. His aunt has trained him through the summer for this moment – he's had these lessons ingrained in him through weeks of being Crucioed and having every filthy little detail in his mind brought out into the open preceded by her trills of mad laughter.
He looks up and his grey eyes lock with the Dark Lord's scarlet ones. And then it's agony, a storm of blazing spots of color that swirl madly and leave him staggering. His mind is being probed but he is prepared (though it does little good) and a few seconds later the Dark Lord stops, a cruel smile on his face. He knows that this is just a preliminary, that if He-Who-Must-not-be-Named were not pleased, none of his secrets would be his own for long.
"You have done well, Bella," the Dark Lord hisses. "If he did not resemble his father so, I never would have considered him as dear Lucius's son." Laughter breaks out from the circle of black-robed, hooded figures surrounding them and Aunt Bellatrix smiles up at the Dark Lord, her face radiant.
"Give me your arm, boy," the Dark Lord motions him forward and he shivers, nauseous, and pushes back the sleeve of his left arm, prepared for pain. The wand presses into his forearm, just above his wrist, and then there's a murmured incantation that he does not catch. A short flash of pain, white-hot like a branding-iron, and then a sickly black skull glows on his pale skin.
"Wear this like a badge of honor, boy," Aunt Bella whispers as he resumes his place in the circle beside her. There's an empty gap beside him – for his father, now safe in Azkaban. He cannot help but resent the man he has looked up to for all his life, for not being there at his time of need. He feels frighteningly bereft, alone in the still summer twilight, surrounded by what seems to him like death and those who wear it's badge.
He tries to conjure up a happy memory, to strengthen himself for the challenges that he knows lie ahead. A face floats up into his mind, pale and pretty with the wide, long-lashed grey-green eyes of a dreamer, framed by a cloud of soft hair, the color of old gold. And a name floats up too, as he closes his eyes, savoring the feel of that lovely face.
Asteria.
…1997…
"I don't feel well, I can't play Quidditch," he snaps when Slughorn arrives to ask him if his 'other' duties will interfere with his playing for Slytherin. He knows he'll throw up if he ever so much as goes near a broom now – he's developed a fear of heights this year. Overuse of the Cruciatus Curse and the effect it has on Acrophobia, he thinks. I could write a paper on that – a nice scholarly thesis, erudite enough for Transfiguration Today, stating cause, effect and reasons. I could even cite myself as an example.
"What's up, Draco?" Pansy asks playfully, slipping into the seat next to him.
"This," he replies shortly and tugs back the sleeve of his left arm, enjoying how her face pales quickly and how she hurries away, murmuring about not wanting to be any trouble. The Dark Mark still commands a certain amount of respect.
"You shouldn't intimidate her like that," Teri Greengrass says softly, slipping into the seat vacated by Pansy. He didn't hear her approach – she was suddenly just there. It surprises him – Asteria was never the quiet one, that was Daphne. She's very quiet nowadays and she watches over the Slytherin first-years like a nesting dragon, keeping them out of the Carrows' way. Of course she's the sixth-year Prefect, but something tells him that even if she weren't she would look after the midgets. That's just Teri's way.
"Go away or I'll Crucio you," he says half-heartedly, burying his nose into the latest edition of Witch Weekly. He reads it nowadays – there's nothing in it to remind him about the real world (and he tries to ignore that as much as he can, reality's too brutal and he's afraid to face it), just endless articles about recipes and hairstyles and celebrity gossip. Boring, but safe.
"That's against the rules," she says, sounding like a pettish five-year-old. He half-smiles remembering her as a five-year-old - spoilt little Teri Greengrass who always got her own way, by hook or crook, and yet still managed to be all the adults' darling. He'd resented her for that when he was six. "I'm a pureblood and my uncles are Death Eaters." Her mother's brothers are the Lestranges, Rodolphus and Rabastan.
"Point taken," he agrees nonchalantly, not looking at her. He doesn't particularly want to look at her, to see the condemning judgment in her soft olive eyes - that look that says This isn't you, Draco. It isn't, you're not a monster. Well, too bad because he is. Now. "Get lost."
She doesn't get lost, just sits there, playing with her hair. Finally, she ventures to say, her voice half-wheedling, half-embarrassed, "I'd just like to ask a favor of you…" She hesitates when he doesn't look up from a particularly engrossing recipe about broccoli consommés. "Marcellus Baddock's been locked up in the dungeons for the last two days. He's only eleven and you, well you know about the Carrows and…Iwashopingyoucouldtalktothem." Her words come out in a rush, her cheeks turning pink at having to ask a favor. It's beneath her and she knows it.
"Pardon?" he asks, savoring the moment.
"I was hoping you could talk to them." She repeats the last part of the sentence, her pale cheeks now flaming with color, and adds, "…You have so much influence over them, you really do Draco, and I'm sure they'd listen to you…" She's fawning over him now, trying to play up to his masculine pride but it doesn't suit her and he's not convinced – she's not Pansy.
"Because of my badge of honor?" he asks wryly, delicately tracing the Dark Mark.
"If you call it that," she says, her voice suddenly cold, getting to her feet. She runs her slim fingers through the waves of her long golden hair and begins to stalk away.
"Oh alright, I'll speak to the maggots and free that little prat!" he yells after her, trying to convince himself that he cares about the plight of little Marcellus and not her opinion of him. It fails dismally, especially when she turns around and flashes him a blinding smile for the first time in weeks.
…1998…
"Draco Aquilius Malfoy," the high, nasal voice of the Questioner squeaks. "On trial for repeated use of the Imperius and Cruciatus Curse, for following He-Who-Must-Not-be-Named for the last two years as one of his Death Eaters of his own free will and for various other offences, most shocking to humanity."
His fingers reach instinctively for his left sleeve but they're chained now. For the past two years he could solve any problem by pushing up that sleeve. Now his badge of honor has become one of dishonor.
Eventually Potter does arrive - as he'd promised to Mother - but what results is only a mitigation of his sentence. Five years against a lifetime in Azkaban. He's lucky, he thinks, very lucky, he'll still be young when he's released again... but then he looks across the courtroom at white-faced Asteria, sitting next to coolly composed Daphne, and shivers. Four years is a long time, especially for a beautiful young woman who's never even hinted that she considers him anything other than a slightly annoying older brother.
I hope she'll be happy, he thinks and his wish for her is sincere.
…2003…
"So how was Azkaban?" Teri asks conversationally over the broccoli consommé that he's prepared. She's spent the last few years in Asia, researching the ancient spells developed by the Harappans and Mesopotomians.
"It was fairly nice, if a tad dull, due to the absence of Dementors," he replies, concentrating on Accioing the champagne non-verbally. "Shacklebolt is an old softie."
"Do you still, well have it?" she asks tentatively, sipping the champagne. Her hair is short now, very, very short. It's even shorter than his which he now grows below his shoulders like his father. Oddly, he isn't pained at the change in her hairstyle - even if his mother is ("Draco, darling, don't you think she looks rather like a fright now?"). To him, Asteria will always be beautiful.
He nods, crossing his fingers under the table. She takes his silence as reticence about the matter, not a sudden attack of nerves, and leaves it at that.
She sips on silently and his hands shake as he toys with homemade panettones. She suddenly begins to cough and spits something out, her bright grey-green eyes watering. "What the-?" she begins but then she sees the little ring, studded with emeralds, green for her eyes, green for their House.
"Oh," she whispers, hastily cleaning the ring of spit. "Oh, well, yes." And then he leans forwards, across the table, and kisses her. The moment is beautiful in its simplicity, in its clichéness, like something out of a normal person's life.
…2012…
It's a quiet, normal evening. Mother is browsing over some old family albums; father and Teri are discussing a new book on Nundus and little Scorpius and Carina, half-asleep already, are buried in his lap listening to stories.
"Tell us the one where everyone died!" Scorpy - as his grandmother has nicknamed him -demands as Rina yawns and buries her sweet little face in her father's shirt. He begins the story again, waving his hands about energetically, turning into the Dark Lord and Potter and then back again, dramatizing the real words.
"…And then he fell down and his slit-like, scarlet eyes were wide open as if he knew that he was dead, in dying," he finishes spectacularly as Scorpy and Rina applaud enthusiastically.
"Mmm…" Rina sucks her thumb happily. "Father," she asks suddenly, her eyes on his father's left forearm. "What's that?"
"Oh it's just the Dark Mark," Scorpy says airily. "Didn't Grandfather tell you the story?"
"Dark Mark?" Rina asks, eyes wide. "Tell me the story too, Daddy!"
And so he – and Scorpy – narrate the story and presently the others begin to listen, Mother frowning in disapproval, Father's forehead wrinkled in thought, tears forming in Aunt Dromeda's eyes and Teri's head cocked a little to the side, disapproving, thoughtful and sad all at once.
"It's not something I'm proud of," he finishes quietly, looking his parents straight in the eye. "But it's something you should know about," he says, looking at Mother. "It's my badge of dishonor," he ends.
There's a slight smile on Teri's face as she gets up and says, "Bedtime now!"