Author's Note: There are two ships in this story: Draco/Hermione (primary, not a happy ending) and Draco/Blaise Zabini (secondary, with an even less-happy ending). Warnings for eventual harsh language, graphic depictions of violence, major character death, and internalized homophobia. If you can make it through all of that, this piece is my attempt to make Draco a good person while still being true to his core character traits. The result is a very sad story, but it's the best character study I have ever done. Feedback is always appreciated (welcomed, loved, I will adore you if you leave a review) but mostly I hope you look at this story as something unique and that while it takes a lot of work and even more pain, it is possible for Draco Malfoy to become a good man.
When Draco was young, Malfoy Manor was more of a maze than a home. Once when he was four, Draco left his room in the middle of the night and the house-elves couldn't find him until the following afternoon. He was asleep, bum-up, in a cauldron in a spare closet.
The Malfoys met the Crabbes when Draco was five. They Flooed back from a playdate and Lucius held Narcissa's coat while she slid her arms out. Their heads snapped toward Draco as he asked,
"What's your name?"
It's a normal question for a five-year-old to ask, except the question should be directed at someone. Draco Malfoy, all of a metre tall with white-blond hair, stood straight with his shoulders back, demanding an answer from what appeared to be empty air.
"Narcissa," Lucius Malfoy leaned toward his wife and whispered, "to whom is our son speaking?"
"Talking to the air is much more entertaining than tea with those dullards." Narcissa quietly purred her approval as Lucius pressed light kisses to her neck. "Mrs. Crabbe looks like she's been kissed by a Dementor and her husband may well have been eating nothing but Fortescue's for the past twenty years."
"Yes, I know, darling," Lucius said as he shrugged out of his own coat and dropped them both into a house-elf's outstretched arms. The parlor was one of the oldest parts of Malfoy Manor. The furniture was made of birdcherry wood, giving it an airy, light appearance. Gold rugs and throw pillows accented by a light green blanket made the small entryway very welcoming.
"But the only people we know with children Draco's age are the Crabbes, Goyles, and Parkinsons," Lucius replied. "Options are slim and I will not have our son cavorting about with the children of Muggle bints and wizards who couldn't keep their wand in their trousers."
"Do not forget Ms. Zabini in all your ranting, my dear," Narcissa added. "She is enchanting."
"Mhmm, yes …" Lucius grimaced playfully and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Forgive me, but I do not fancy spending time around her. The men in her orbit are rather prone to misfortune."
"How do you believe you would end up, Lucius? 'Mysteriously poisoned' or 'accidentally' falling off a balcony?" Narcissa joked. Lucius leaned down for a kiss.
"You know it's either them or those blood traitor Weasleys. Our boy deserves the best."
"Which is why he should attend Beauxbatons," Narcissa insisted.
Lucius rolled his eyes and pressed his forehead into her shoulder.
"Not this again! We are sending him to Durmstrang—"
"I do not care what Igor Karkaroff tells you, I am not sending my only son halfway around the world and have him turned into a soulless icicle!"
"Well it is not my fault Draco is our only son, is it?"
Narcissa recoiled from Lucius's embrace like it burned. Never in his life had Lucius Malfoy so desperately wanted a Time-Turner. He wanted to claw the words out of the air and shove them back down his throat. He had no secrets with Narcissa. Secrets are the only unaffordable luxury within a dynasty like the Malfoys.
"Narcissa!" Lucius shouted after her. She stormed out of the parlor, Draco close behind. "I do not blame you, I understand—"
"Lies do not become you, Lucius," she shouted over her shoulder.
.oOo.
Draco's episode was mostly forgotten in the months afterward. Narcissa spent several weeks in a bedroom apart from her husband. One morning well into spring, Draco's sixth birthday approaching, Lucius and Narcissa were decidedly not talking over tea in the garden.
Lucius Malfoy, hair pulled back in a high ponytail, frowned over some loose pieces of parchment on the table in front of him. Narcissa lounged in silk dress robes, sunglasses nestled in an updo, her hair only slightly darker than her husband's. Draco chattered away in his chair; tea sloshed onto the saucer as he told his parents about his new friend named Pansy.
"Like the flower!" he said.
Draco loved to hear himself talk. He prattled on about her hair, "black as ink;" her less-than-sunny disposition, "the meanest person in the world;" and her pet snake named Tom. Lucius's patience dwindled with his son (and his wife) as Draco rambled on. After, "Her grandmother has a tattoo just like Father's!" Lucius let out a deep groan and rubbed his brow with the heel of his hand. He tossed a book in Draco's direction and said,
"Read it, there's pictures." He turned his attention to Narcissa once Draco was distracted.
"Narcissa," he began, but she took her sunglasses out of her hair and put them on to distance herself from the conversation.
"How much longer are you going to hold this over my head?" Lucius demanded.
"Until you no longer have a head," she immediately quipped back.
Lucius groaned again before saying, "You know that I adore you."
"Hmm …" she hummed, leaned back, and slouched in her chair. "You forget, I know how you work. Had you known Draco would be our only …" She stopped to gather her composure. "You would have married someone else." Lucius opened his mouth to protest but Narcissa held up a hand to silence him.
"I want your loyalty, husband. Eight years of marriage and I have never had it. When we wed, your loyalty was to the Dark Lord. You endangered yourself, your pregnant wife, and then your newborn son. Now that He is gone, your loyalty is to the Malfoy name more than it ever has been to me."
"No, woman!" Lucius rose from his seat at the end of the table. "I love you and I will always love you. My trust is yours, my money is yours, my soul—"
"Has never belonged to me," Narcissa cut him off.
"That is not true!"
"And what about when the Dark Lord returns, Lucius? What of me then? What of our son, then? We both know He is not finished. Upon His return, what will become of us?"
"You are the most important thing in my life, now and always," he said with conviction.
"Draco is the most important thing in my life now," Narcissa countered.
In time, Draco would learn how Malfoys did business: in hushed tones with tension that simmers, settles, and solidifies before action is taken. While he was absorbed in a book far too advanced to understand, his parents came to an agreement and developed a strategy. There are two layers to every conversation.
Draco, of course, missed this entirely. He pointed to something in the book and looked expectantly up at the space next to him. Narcissa took notice when he said, "Oh, so it isn't you? Okay," and fell backward, dejected. Narcissa shot a worried glance at her husband.
"Mon bichette, to whom are you speaking?"
"She won't tell me her name," Draco shrugged.
"She?" Lucius asked, still standing, casting a shadow over his family.
"Pansy said it has to be a girl because boys cannot keep quiet this long."
Narcissa snatched the book from Draco's hands. One look at the page and her cheeks drained of their colour. She bolted upright so quickly her sunglasses fell down her nose. Lucius's brow immediately furrowed in concern. Narcissa Malfoy never lost her composure.
"What did he point at?" Lucius demanded. "What does he believe he is seeing?"
Narcissa did not answer at first. She flipped the book over and held it aloft for her husband to see. There, taking up most of the second page, was a drawing of a Dementor.
"Get Bella."
.oOo.
Narcissa never asked Lucius how he got her sister out of prison. When she asked Bella the response was,
"Loyalty is fickle, Cissy. The Dementors' and Minister Bagnold's," she said with a wink.
Not that Azkaban hadn't taken its toll on her. It was evident in little things—how her hands always trembled a bit and her tone had more bite. Her hair was a tangled mess, but wasn't it always? Hadn't she always been more than a tad bit mad?
But nothing changed about the way her face lit up at the sight of her nephew.
"Brat!" she shouted playfully.
"Aunty Bella!" Draco's head popped into view overtop of his mini potions set and he ran into her open arms. Bellatrix lifted him onto her hip and pulled out a chocolate frog pack.
"I brought you a treat," she said. She pulled it away from his outstretched arm. "Tut tut, nephew. You need to do something for me first."
Draco nodded.
"I want to meet your friend. Can you do that for me, Draco? I want to meet it."
Draco's mouth turned into a thin line and he furiously shook his head.
"She went away. She doesn't like you."
"Doesn't like me?" The playfulness in her voice turned to menace.
"She's scared," Draco added.
"Scared?" She turned to face her sister. "Well she might be a bright one after all," Bellatrix quipped. She put Draco on the floor and knelt in front of him to be closer to his height. "Nephew, I just want you to stand very still. Can you do that?"
Draco nodded and Aunty Bella gave him the chocolate frog pack to hold. She pulled out her wand and muttered,
"Legilimens."
Child minds are fast, which causes the world around them to seem very slow. Upon entering Draco's mind, Bellatrix saw the room as he saw it, everything moving with exaggerated slowness. She pressed her forehead against Draco's, desperately searching the room for a creature only he could see.
They were in Draco's school room. A large wooden table dominated the centre of the space and Draco's half-made concoction still bubbled of its own accord. A bookshelf covered one wall, all manner of bits and bobs stationed around the room, too many places to hide for a creature with no desire to be seen. There were too many hideaways and a three-sixty view of the room turned up nothing. Bellatrix moaned in frustration.
"Playing hide-and-seek are we?"
"She is scared," Draco insisted.
Bellatrix hummed, "Then let's make her scared in here, shall we? If it's not out here in five seconds, I'll kill you."
"Bella, do not dare to threaten my—" Lucius shouted but cut off as he met an invisible barrier. Unable to reach his son, he slammed a fist against it to no avail and Bellatrix cackled.
Draco swallowed, remarkably unfazed. His aunt's fingers were tight enough around his throat to bruise, but he was too close to Aunty Bella to believe her threat. She was the one family member who treated him like a child who wanted to have fun, not a prince with the future of a business empire in his hands. Just before she'd been carted off to Azkaban when Draco was three, she took him along for his first-ever ride on a broomstick.
Aunty Bella let go of his neck and smiled deviously.
"There it is."
The creature knelt behind Draco like Bellatrix's mirrored image. They engaged in a staredown overtop his head. The creature's body was covered almost entirely by a dark-grey cloak. It was easy for Bellatrix to see how a child would mistake it for a Dementor, but she was surrounded by them every moment in Azkaban and this creature did not make her feel any of that despair.
Five white, almost translucent fingers rested against Draco's back. Dementors do not have human hands.
The creature looked up at Bellatrix who saw only an empty hood where there should be face. Its hand slowly reached for its hood and pushed it back to reveal a young girl all of eighteen. She was semi-translucent like a ghost, but she had a colour about her to go along with a bright, filmy aura. She was fairly plain, her dominating feature was the frizzy mass of curls puffing outward and down past her shoulders.
It said nothing, but words were unnecessary. The message on her face was clear.
Do not threaten my charge again.
Draco began to panic and asked, "What's happening?"
"Shh, shh, Aunty Bella and your friend are just having a little chat."
"You see it?!" Narcissa asked hopefully.
"Why doesn't she like you?" Draco demanded, frustrated no one would answer his questions. Frustrated he was only seeing half of the conversation and confused by the expression on his mother's face. Bellatrix wore a devilish smile in response to the creature's expression of contempt. It was a continuous nonverbal threat.
Do not threaten my charge again.
The creature's right hand came up again to pull the hood over her face. She stood to step around Draco's left and took hold of his hand. Bellatrix grinned and with a wave of her wand Draco was left alone in his mind.
"You birthed a miracle, Cissy."
"There is something following our son?" Lucius asked, disturbed something could have such intimate access to his life and his family.
Bellatrix got to her feet and stood nose-to-nose with the space to Draco's left.
"It's nothing to worry about, Cissy," Bellatrix said, pointedly ignoring her brother-in-law. She could feel the creature's energy even though she couldn't see it. She would bet she knew more about that creature than it knew about itself.
"Bella, what is it and why can we not see it?" Lucius wrapped his arms around Narcissa's waist and perched his chin atop her head. Her face was devoid of colour and Lucius's grip was just a little too tight for comfort.
"Draco has a Reaper."
Lucius sighed in disbelief and relief.
"A Reaper? Draco is worthy of a Reaper? This thing is of no danger to us?"
"It won't hurt him?" Narcissa added.
"What are you saying? Why are you talking like that?" Draco began to cry. He turned to his Reaper and, the adults assumed, pulled on its sleeve. "Why are they saying those things? Tell me!" he demanded. When he did not get an answer he ran for the door.
Aunty Bella was too quick. She scooped Draco up and wiped away his tears. She smiled, a uniquely soft expression from a hell-hardened, half-mad woman, reserved for her favourite nephew. Draco reached out and pulled on one of her corkscrew curls.
"You, nephew, are going to lead the next generation of Death Eaters. Only special people get Reapers, Draco. Very special people. You'll grow up to be the Dark Lord's second-in-command. Just like me."
"Father says I should never be second. I want to be first," Draco whispered.
"You will learn soon enough who your master is, nephew. You are smart and loyal, you are perfect. Reapers only come to people whose decisions guide the fate of the universe. Your death, Draco, will change the world."
"But … I don't want to die," Draco insisted.
"Nephew, we all die. Your choices will change the world, Draco. You will die like the rest of us, in service to the Dark Lord, but you will have a friend there to guide you. She will always be there for you."
"She's my best friend?" Draco asked.
"She is whatever you want her to be."
"But she never talks to me. Most times, she stays in the library. She doesn't like me," Draco pouted.
"That's not true. Little nephew, Reapers are so rare that most people do not believe they exist." Bellatrix shot a pointed look at Draco's parents. "Keep her a secret, but she will come around. She's your guide, Draco. She serves you and your destiny."
Draco preened at the compliment and put his hands on Aunty Bella's hollow cheeks.
"Did you know someone with one?" he asked.
"The Dark Lord," she smiled at him, dark eyes beaming with pride. "And you will lead his followers one day. The universe chose you, just as it chose him. He was a god."
"What happened to him?"
"He is out there somewhere, my love. He's still out there."