Marcus
I woke up with a hollow feeling in my body, like all the organs that filled it were gone. It was still dark, but I got out of bed and grabbed my clothes to take with me to the washroom. I turned the faucet on the hot water side of the sink and cupped water in my hands to wash my face with. The water kept getting hotter and sent my hands shaking from the intensity of the heat. My heart jolted in realization and I turned it off. It's a habit of mine to never move away from something hot or burning, I have this doomed feeling that one day I won't have a choice but to stay in a world of fire.
I looked up into the mirror to examine myself.
Once I snuck out of my house, while my parents were sleeping and I ended up at a something Muggles call a "movie". I was little then so I don't remember much of the movie, but I do remember that one of the characters had done something he deeply regretted and looked in a mirror after he committed his sin. I never understood why he did that.
Now, ten years later, I found myself understanding that man in the movie. I looked in the mirror to find any traces of a decent human being left in me. Father Clarke once told me, on one of the many walks I took with him, that the eyes are how you see a person's soul. I was trying to see my soul that night; I wanted to see if my soul was good or bad. However, all I found staring back at me was my eyes sunk in sadness. I studied myself, my white pale skin against dark brown hair and eyes. For a long time, it's troubled me that my hair and eyes look so dark. I usually avoid mirrors because whenever I see my reflection I wonder if the darkness in my hair and eyes reflects the darkness of my soul.
I wonder if my father, who looks like an older reflection of me, ever felt these fears. I wonder if my mother ever did. My parents regularly attend our Anglican church. They sing hymns and pray for others if they're asked or not asked, they praise the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. My mother makes sure our house is full of little crosses on the wall.
Women don't usually work directly under Voldemort, they spend their nights worrying for the men who do. When I was a little boy, my mother would often look out the windows until my father came home as she prayed prayer after prayer for him. And I often find my father solemnly reading the Bible.
On the morning I was taken to the Hogwart's Express this year, I entered the living room to see my father crying as he stared at the Bible in his lap.
I went over and sat beside him, holding one of his hands the way he did for me when ever I was frightened as a child. He looked over at me, with his face stained with tears. It was odd, but his face stayed perfectly preserved as apposed to scrunching up from the force of crying. My father cries so much that he does it without any effort. The tears just seem to form in his eyes and slide out.
"Why are you crying?" I had asked.
My father seemed confused by either my question or by my empathetic behavior. He isn't usually home, but with Voldemort and the other Death Eaters. It is not a place of kind words or actions.
He looked back down at the Bible, telling me in a scared voice, "I don't know. I never know."
I studied him, but I couldn't see his face. "You're always so solemn when you read the Bible." I added after he didn't respond, "You even look sad when you pray."
My father gave no sign that he had heard me. He simply stared at his copy of the Bible. Finally, he said in his frightened voice, "I don't understand it."
"Why you're sad?" I asked.
"Yes," he answered, still sounding so scared.
It hurt my heart to see him this way. I know that my father is a killer and my mother is a killer's wife, but I am their son. I still want for them to love me, so I care for them. What right do I have to hate my mother when I might have a wife in her position one day and what right do I have to hate my father when I will one day become him?
I felt my father's hand shaking in mine. I used my other hand to touch his upper arm and shoulder, "Father?" He did not respond, I asked again, "Father?" I waited but he chose to remain silent with me.
I struggled to pull an idea of comfort from my head. First of all, I couldn't remember the last time I had so deeply asked how one of my parents felt. I think that was the first time I ever did. My father, when I was a little boy, used to find me crying over my fears in my bed. He used to check on me at night, when he would find me crying and afraid he would sit with me and hold me close, while also taking one of my hands in his. He would kiss the top of my head and then my cheek, then he'd ask me to tell him what was wrong.
My fears ran deeper than most children. My father was out most nights on Death Eater missions, at a time when everyone thought Voldemort had died, that involved him not going out to kill people, but to help Voldemort find a way to regain his strength. Only so many Death Eaters knew of these meeting or that Voldemort was not dead, but my father was one of the unfortunate people still under his control.
I'm not saying that Voldemort's old followers turned good, but some stopped performing crimes while others did them without their leader. I had heard my mother tell her friends and family she worried he would be arrested by the Ministry of Magic and brought to Azkaban or executed by the Aurors. As I continued to see her worriedly praying by our living room window, her fear became my fear.
My father would listen to this almost every night and make me face him, telling me that I had nothing to worry about. He said none of those things would ever happen. His voice was strong, but his eyes always gave away the fears he had for his own life. I would continue to cry and he would hold me for a long time. Sometimes, I saw him cry or heard him try to hide it. I think he was trying to be strong for me.
I did not want to see my father like this, to see the man I'd always seen as strong acting like a scared little child. He did bad things, but he was still my father. All those years of consoling me in my fears were enough for me to build up sympathy for him.
I saw a tear drop fall on the pages of the Bible, my heart ached for him. I usually never felt this way about him, but I forgot the killer that he was and saw him only as my father. The one who'd comforted me so many times.
I kissed his cheek.
I acted on impulse to console him, but enough fear pulsed through me to make me pull away. I had only meant to make him feel better, but I hadn't kissed my father in a long time. He hadn't kissed me either. My mother still hugged and kissed me, but that is how Death Eater mothers act with their sons. Sons may also return the actions, but not with their fathers. As a Death Eater's son comes closer to manhood and his time of serving Voldemort father's become cold with them and stop showing all signs of affection. It is not like this with daughters because they are not expected to join Voldemort or kill anyone that he sees as "enemies" to us.
I attended a Death Eater meeting with my father, where I learned this rule. I was thirteen and had been going to them since I was very little. The meetings were different as a child, it was mainly Voldemort telling us who he deemed worthy of living and who he decided must die.
By the time I was thirteen, some of the boys I'd first had these "lessons" with were now old enough to serve as Death Eaters. One of them was having his initiation. We watched Voldemort mark his arm and the boy grimace in pain. When it was done, Voldemort ordered him to go out on a mission that night. It was a dangerous mission, I remember. It was most likely that he would end up caught and placed in Azkaban for many years or life.
The boy looked to his father with frightened eyes and went over to him, wrapping his arms around his father's shoulders. His father remained stiff, unmoved by the adoring look in his son's eyes.
His son begged, "Please, father, don't let him make me do this. Help me. Tell him not to make me go. I don't want to go to Azkaban. I've heard such horrible things about it. Please, don't let me go. I don't want my soul sucked out. Please, father, help me."
His begging reminded me of this dog I once saw whimpering, when surrounded by a bunch of mean, bigger dogs ready to attack it.
He became desperate, when he saw the cold, uncaring look in his father's eyes. He began continuously kissing his father's cheek, begging through it, "Come with me. You're strong and you're very clever. You've escaped the Aurors before. Please. Please, Father, come with me. Help me carry out my mission. Please." He stopped to repeatedly kiss his father's cheek, without interruption. He added, "I need you. I need you with me. Please. Please, help me."
Those last words struck my heart. I wanted to help him. I wanted to scream for the man to save his son. I knew my father would save me. He always did and he always would.
The son told his father, "I'll stay loyal to you if you help me. I'll never disobey you." He kissed his cheek four times before saying, "I'll love you forever. I promise. I'll obey you the best I can. I'll love you the best I can. Please," he was shaking, "just help me. Please, Father, please."
For a moment, I thought it was beautiful. I thought his father's heart would be won over by his son's words and actions.
His father pushed him, hard, on the floor, all of us younger boys jumped, but the older boys and adults stayed still like stone. They must have known the rule. I recall looking over to Voldemort, who watched it all with a calm smile.
His father screamed at the boy, "You are my son not my daughter!" He kicked his son in the stomach, making us younger ones jump, "Be a man! You are a Death Eater now!" He kicked him again, "You should be willing to suffer in Azkaban like I suffered!" He gave another violent kick to his son's stomach, "You rely on no one and don't look to me for help." He kicked him harder, "Do you wish to be my daughter? You act nothing like a son!"
He picked him up and beat his own son with his fists. Only Death Eaters who are blinded by rage don't use magic for inflicting pain. He pulled his son's hair and held it tightly, "You are a man now. Men don't need love from other men. That's for faggots, like you."
He threw his son down to the floor and looked to Voldemort who applauded him like a gentleman watching the end of a play, with the other men following suit. The older boys joined in solemnly. It distressed me to see my father clapping next to me.
I hated my father then and I garnered a deep resentment for him after that night. That was the night he stopped showing me any signs of affection and the night I tried to stop wanting him too.
The other man's son pulled on the bottom of his father's trousers, asking weakly, "Father, please…"
His father stomped on his son's hand, making us younger boys jump again, and his son cried out in pain.
Voldemort turned to us, "Let this be a lesson to you boys, a man does not need his father to help him become great. You will never be a man if you depend on your father." He stood there the whole night with an sinister sort of stillness, like that of a lion before it attacks its prey. He added, "Look at me men," some of the youngest boys amongst us were eleven, "I never had a father and I made myself great because of it."
Father Clarke once told me about a time where Jesus said something about a house that's divided won't stand. I don't remember the quote exactly, but I know that Jesus was right. It's one of the ways Voldemort keeps the evil spreading down the line.
Death Eater homes are usually dysfunctional and have something missing between fathers and sons, but not with daughters. No one will disobey their parents because, as I saw that year, so many sons continually join Voldemort as a way to find the love their fathers once showed them. Many of us learn to hate our fathers, but we all know why we plan to join Voldemort.
Out of all the Death Eater families I've seen, only one of them seemed undivided by Voldemort. At our Christmas party, I saw Lucius Malfoy pull his son away and decided to follow them because I always get an anxious feeling when Death Eater fathers talk with their oldest sons alone. I went up the stairs and looked down from where they couldn't see me. Lucius gave his son a present, it was a gold pocket watch Lucius explained his father had given him that now belonged to Draco. Draco smiled, as did his father, who apologized for the absence of wrapping paper.
They both understood it would look suspicious if anyone, mainly Voldemort, saw that a father had given a wrapped present to his son. That a father should take the time to wrap something for his son was seen as vile to Voldemort. That was only to be done with daughters, while mothers wrapped presents for both children.
Draco kissed his father's cheek in gratitude, while Lucius also kissed his son on the cheek. Lucius pulled his son in a painfully affectionate embrace. Draco choked up.
Their relationship gives me hope. Even when I hear Draco threaten others that he'll tell his father if they hurt him it gives me hope….and disgust.
I glanced down at the passage my father was reading, it was the one Father Clarke had told me about. The one about a "house divided".
I looked to my father worriedly, my heart continuing to ache. I reached out to him again, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. "Father, it's alright..."
I kissed him on the cheek. I kissed him three times.
He looked to me in confusion, "Why did you do that?"
"You were sad, father." I answered.
He pulled away from me and got up, "That's how little boys console their fathers."
"I did it because I love you." I stated.
He looked down at me, "You know how the Dark Lord feels about that."
"He's wrong." I told my father dismally.
My father struck me across the face. He walked away without even looking me in the eyes. My heart ached much more deeply than it did before. My father had never struck me before.
Good fathers don't hit their sons for loving them, they love them back.
My father brought me into Kings Cross station. I don't know who ever thought up the idea of making us use it to get to our train, but they were brilliant. Every year, Wizards are forced to pass by their Muggle counterparts. My father even caught an old man, who was going to fall once. He remarked with great difficulty that the man was similar to my grandfather, who lives somewhere in Wales.
We passed by through the brick wall (the only problem I have with using the Muggle train station) without any interaction between us. From the corner of my eye, I saw him leave me. It gave my aching heart a hallow feeling, knowing I had forever lost my father's love.
I took a step and heard his voice, "Marcus!" I turned around, expecting a lecture, but instead was enveloped by his warm embrace. "My son," he said like he'd found something he'd lost, "my son."
Most people are embarrassed when their parents hug them in public, but all I cared about was that my father showed me he still loved me.
I somehow ended up hugging him back and smiling as he kissed me on the cheek many times. My usually aching heart, for the first time in many years, felt like something good was filling it. It was like a light illuminating the darkness of a room.
"I'm sorry I struck you." he apologized in my ear.
"It's alright." I kissed his cheek, feeling him smile.
We pulled apart and he gave me one last kiss (A/N: On the cheek. Always on the cheek.) goodbye before I boarded the train.
I rushed to find a compartment, getting one that let me see all the parents waving goodbye. My father was there, unlike every other year, to see me off.
It was odd to see him waving, his eyes reluctantly watching me leave. This was strange because, even before I was thirteen, he had never done that. He'd always went home or gone to "work".
I waved back to him, feeling my eyes well up. My father was also nearly crying. It wasn't enough to spend one morning together. That many years of avoiding love and affection being exchanged between each other couldn't be settled in one morning. Maybe not even in one year.
The train lurched forward, yanking me away from the window. I curled around, trying to see him again. I saw his figure get smaller and smaller, never picking up his hanging head.
I would have called out to him, if the train hadn't been so loud.
I gave a small smile at one of my few happy memories. Then, I looked back at my reflection. My smile faded away and my heart ached again. I was still troubled that I couldn't use the hot water to burn away my sins and that I couldn't find any signs of salvation in the reflection of my soul.
The sound of an owl made me jump. I quickly turned off the water and pulled on my uniform.
After one last glance at my reflection, I forced myself to look away and walk out of the dormitories. Then I walked out of the common room.
I ran up the stairs to the owlery, using the lumos maximus spell to light up the end of my wand. I found a gray owl, just arrived with a rolled up parchment tied to its leg.
It had a gold seal that read Marcus Flintin my father's handwriting.
I felt an excited springing illuminate my heart. I took it off the owl's leg, paying it a small fee. Then, I carefully removed the seal, taking as much care unrolling it.