Title:Legacy
Author:TinaMustDie
I love Draco, so I guess I love Scorpius by default.
Rose remembers the first time she saw Scorpius Malfoy. It was her first day of school and she'd been so excited. At the train station, her father had pointed out a man and his son through the smoke, a few yards away. If she had known what was in store for that boy she would have cried.
Rose remembers the first time she saw Scorpius Malfoy win a fight. It was their first day of classes. He was punched by a bitter Ravenclaw boy a few years older while walking to breakfast. The next thing she knows, he's pinning the older boy to the ground with his knees and throttling him. It took three seventh years to pull Malfoy off of him.
From that day on, it became commonplace to see Scorpius Malfoy with a black eye or busted lip. It didn't raise any eyebrows to see several other boys even worse off. There were jokes that Scorpius spent more time in detention than in his classes.
Rose remembers never laughing at any of them.
He walks by, ignoring the looks and taunts with a practiced ease that breaks her heart.
"Such a troublemaker. Honestly, acts like he owns the place. Just like his father."
"Stupid boy."
Albus watches Malfoy walk right past the two teachers. He doesn't pretend he didn't hear, but he doesn't stop and argue either. Just keeps moving.
He's heard many people say Scorpius shouldn't be in Gryffindor, but he's never believed that. He sees Malfoy deal with the misdirected rage around him and thinks that Scorpius is the definition of bravery and strength. He has watched Malfoy for years and he wishes somebody would stand up because it's so wrong. Ravenclaws aren't prized for their courage, but pretending something disgusting isn't going on makes him sick with himself. Albus turns back to his book, knowing that he doesn't have enough spine to do anything about it. (Hating himself just a little more than yesterday)
The compartment is freezing cold. Scorpius rests his forehead against the sheet of glass, though it feels more like ice. Snow is falling, and as the train speeds through the countryside, the snowflakes blur together in a spinning wall of white. Scorpius thinks it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. He's headed home for Christmas, his favorite holiday.
When he was young, maybe five or six, he would curl up under the Christmas tree and watch the fairy lights twinkle rhythmically. Sometimes his parents would join him, his mother's dark hair spread across the ground, his father humming a tune he can just barely remember. They'd lie there, hands joined, safe from the world for just a little while.
Scorpius smiles bitterly and wishes they could go back to that.
The train station is crowded, but it never matters for Scorpius. The people part like a sea he heard about in a muggle story once, nobody wanting to touch him.
Whispers break out and he thinks he hates those most of all. Whispers are the most vindictive things, barely there, but stinging so bad because you only catch fragments, leaving the rest to morbid imagination. "The mother was a..", "Just like his...", "...no good can come of that...". Outright jeers would be much less cruel.
Scorpius heads toward the gateway back to the muggle world and contemplates staying on the other side.
It's a depressing place, he reflects. History fills it's halls, and the air seems absolutely saturated with malice. It's dark elegance is fascinating. You could lose yourself in this graceful world. He cannot remember a time when it was any different. Tradition is a terrifying thing.
In all of his memories of home, if you could call it that, there is never much light. The atmosphere around the manor is bleak, lifeless. It's really no wonder his ancestors were all insane. This place could drive anyone mad. He wonders if this is just some sort of desperate justification on his part. He decides to ignore the thought.
The long walk to his room is carried out in almost complete silence. The soft taps of his feet seem to be defiling something sacred. He wants to run down the halls, screaming his lungs out. He won't.
"Scorpius."
He feels his heart beating painfully in his chest. He doesn't want to look, because he's going to break if he does.
The man is white as the blizzard outside, gray eyes glowing in the dim light. His skin is thin as paper, the bags under his eyes a startling black. His pale, fine hairs look like wisps of smoke. Scorpius drinks in what was once his father, then turns away. The ghost sinks back into the shadows, to wallow in guilty misery. Falling to his knees, Scorpius sobs loudly, just to spite him.
The bedroom is silent, like so much of the house now that his mother is gone. Draco didn't show up to the train station and he wonders if he did something wrong. The light is on in the adjoining bathroom and Scorpius smiles in relief. He must be in there.
In all his thirteen years, he's never seen so much blood.
Scorpius wakes up screaming. He's breathing heavily, hands twisted in the sheets. It takes a few moments to realize he's crying. Suicide is such an ugly word.
The social worker always checks up on him three days before Christmas Eve. Scorpius is glad when she doesn't do a very thorough investigation. It didn't take much to convince the Ministry to let him live on his own. Scorpius is well aware that it was too easy.
Bastards.
Most people think that his favorite teacher is his head of house. Scorpius lets out a derisive snort. Headmaster McGonagall is a lovely woman...that chooses to overlook the behavior of her staff and student body. Scorpius hates her for it.
It would come as a shock to most that his favorite teacher is Professor Longbottom. He's a fair man, strict but kind. Scorpius can't help but like him, even as he sits in his office and waits to be punished. Professor Longbottom sits on the other side of the desk, tired lines around his eyes.
"Mr. Malfoy, you have so much potential. You are one of the brightest young minds in this school, but all you ever do is fight,"he sighs wearily. He looks so old, and Scorpius notices thin trails of graying hair across his temples. "It's not fair, is it?"
Scorpius doesn't say a word, and receives three weeks detention for beating up Mitchell Flint.
His fingers are cracked and bleeding, his back aching from hours of scrubbing the floor in the Great Hall. He's restless and punch-drunk on apathy. Scorpius wanders down the corridor aimlessly, sleep evading him. Shadows flicker in the corner, unnoticed. It's only when Benjamin Goyle and Adrien Nott appear from behind the statue of a rather ugly wizard, that Scorpius recognizes his mistake.
He wakes up in the hospital wing four hours later, the newly employed Madame Maldone working on stopping the bleeding in his chest. The aging Pomfrey labors nearby, horrified and remembering years ago, when another Malfoy was being treated for wounds like these.
Scorpius smiles in a daze, white teeth stained red. He laughs, and blood gurgles in his throat. The witch at St. Mungos insisted that they had no room after hearing his last name. Lying there, bleeding, he gets it. He finally understands his family. Malfoy is a hateful name, feared and despised. Those who bear it are shamed with the past. "Bad faith" for blood. You either hold yourself at a distance (vertically), or it eats you alive. This is what it means to be a Malfoy.
Maybe, he muses, fathers have sons to share the burden. To have somebody that knows, somebody to grieve with. He realizes he is the last of his people, a lineage thousands of years old.
He lays, dying, so proud of himself.