Slings and Arrows 3

standard disclaimer applies again (this goes for chapter 2 as well): Harry Potter and related indicia belong to JK Rowling, various publishers and Warner Bros. No copyright infringement intended, no money being made. Also no ownership of anything Shakespearean is professed herein.

After Narcissa had left, holding herself so carefully straight that Draco knew instinctively she was trying not to cry, he had spent some time pacing helplessly up and down the green carpet, unable to deal with what he'd just heard. Lucius, his uncle? His uncle? All those speeches about living up to his father's shining example, based on a lie?

He felt as if his entire world had come loose from its moorings and was shaking itself to pieces. The only thing he could be sure of was that Lucius wouldn't stop at a beating if he knew Draco had found out about his real father. Lucius wouldn't stop, period. And Narcissa was in danger, too. He'd seen the looks his fa....his uncle had been shooting her. He knew she was probably hiding the same silver-white whip scars that criscrossed his own back. And she was Lucius's wife, to do with as he pleased. She had even less protection than he did.

The clock on the mantel struck half twelve. He jerked out of his thoughts, aware of the pain that still shivered all up and down his back. Guillaume said to be in the Oak Room tonight at twelve, he thought. I wonder what he wanted me to see.

Surely this is the secret he was talking about. All that crap about him being wrong and the Lucius-Narcissa pairing must be to do with this. I think he even mentioned Julian in there.

Christ.

Maybe I'll see something that will help.

He doubted it, doubted it very strongly indeed, but there was no other way to satisfy his curiosity than to follow the portrait's instructions. Outside the wind was rising and rain spattered against the great windows. A fitting night for a "manifestation," thought Draco sourly. Now all we need is the organ music and the thunder and lightning, and I'm living the Hammer film life.

For the first time in his life, Draco Malfoy envied Harry Potter.

The Oak Room was on the top floor of the mansion. Panelled in the dark wood that gave it its name, it was rarely used by the Malfoys due to its inconvenient location and the general feeling of unpleasantness that suffused its shadows. Draco shivered under his velvet dressing gown as he shone his wandlight into the corners of the room. It didn't feel welcoming at all, despite the squashy armchairs that sat under their dustcovers by the cold fireplace. It felt like he wasn't quite alone, and whatever was accompanying him didn't like the company one bit.

He jumped as somewhere a clock struck midnight. Right, he thought shakily. Manifest, then, if you're going to. I've not got all night.

He looked around himself, eyes wide in the dimness. Old portraits of more Malfoys and dark-varnished Gothic landscapes stared back at him. It suddenly seemed very, very dark in the room, and Draco found himself wishing heartily he was back in his own chambers, warm and brightly lit. I'm giving this one more minute, he thought, then I'm out of here. And screw Guillaume de Malfoy.

There was a breath of coldness in the closed air of the room. Draco turned slowly, aware that the air was moving from behind him. He felt the blood drain out of his face, felt his heart jump and stutter as slowly the darkness began to take on a faint form, like a moving shadow.

Christ.

The thing, whatever it was, was giving off coldness like an odor. Draco took a shaky step back and found himself suddenly sitting on the arm of a dustcover-swathed chair. He was rather grateful for its support, as his legs didn't seem to want to obey him. Unable to take his eyes from the thing, he watched in fascinated horror as it firmed and contracted into the vague shape of a man.

A hissing voice, not unlike that of Potter when he'd spoken to the snake their second year, suddenly filled Draco's head. "Come closer, boy," it sighed.

Draco was finding it difficult to breathe. "What are you?" he choked.

"Don't you recognize me?" said the shadow. It wasn't really a shadow any more, though, he realized; a faint greenish light, like the sick glow of rotting wood, was beginning to shine from it. In the play of that dim glow Draco could make out its features, and was suddenly colder than ever.

"Father?" He heard his voice crack, as if from a long way away.

"Yes," sighed the thing that had been Julian Malfoy. "Yes. I frighten you."

"Of course you do," said Draco, terror leaching his control away. "You look like a fucking Lethifold."

The shadow laughed, a nasty dry sound like leaves rattling on stone. "Come closer, then, boy. I am very weak. Your strength will make me appear as I should appear."

He shrank back against the chair. Julian Malfoy's ghost laughed again, sadly.

"I will not hurt you. I would not hurt you, Draco. That is Lucius's desire, not mine."

The voice was suddenly so sad it made his heart hurt, sharply, as if he had been wounded. He reached out a hand to the shadow, almost without knowing he was doing it, and felt his arm go numb to the shoulder with the astonishing, all-pervading coldness that he touched. Life and heat was running out of him like blood. The shadow grew lighter and lighter, the dim glow it produced became more and more bright, until finally it lit the whole room with a more healthy light than its previous green luminescence. Draco caught his breath. His father looked like Lucius...a younger Lucius...but his face held nothing of the icy reserve Lucius cultivated, nor were his eyes and mouth surrounded by the deep lines of a constant frown. He looked as Lucius might have looked at twenty-three or so, if Lucius had ever smiled.

"Better?" said Julian Malfoy, and now the voice had lost some of its reptilian quality. Draco nodded, and the ghost released his hand. He wiggled his fingers experimentally. They seemed to work, and heat came back to the frozen flesh quite quickly.

"I don't have much time," his father continued. "I'm sorry I frightened you, back there."

"No, it's all right," Draco said hurriedly. "I'm just...well, I only just learned about it all tonight."

"I know," said Julian. "Narcissa should have told you, but...I watch you, you know, you and her, and it would have gone very hard for her if she'd let you know this before. You're old enough now to keep a secret, Draco."

"But," said Draco helplessly. "What am I supposed to do? Why did Guillaume send me here tonight?"

"Because," said his father's ghost, "you haven't learned the whole story yet. I died, and Lucius married your mother in his typical greedy fashion and proceeded to try his damnedest to make you into another him. Which he has not succeeded in doing."

"Not for want of trying," said Draco sourly, aware again of the sharp pain of the new wounds on his back.

"Indeed," said Julian, quietly. "Look...I don't want to hurt you any more than you've already been hurt today, but you've got to know this, Draco. I didn't just die. I was killed."

Draco felt cold all over again. He knew suddenly what Julian was going to say, and wished he didn't.

"Lucius," he muttered, not looking at the ghost. "Lucius killed you, didn't he?"

"Yes," said his father softly. "Narcissa wanted to believe it was an accident. She almost convinced herself, for quite a while. Then Lucius began to change. He became what you know him to be today—what you, especially, know him to be. She must have realized then what was happening. By then it was too late; she was already involved in the conspiracy of silence. Draco, I was murdered fourteen years ago today."

"How did he do it?" Draco demanded. He could see Lucius happily knocking off his brother. He knew he wasn't really taking this in; he couldn't possibly be.

"He told your Voldemort that I was a traitor to the Silver Serpents."

"He's not my Voldemort," Draco spat. "I want nothing to do with him."

Julian stared at him, misty grey eyes wide. "Draco," he said softly. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to hear you say that."

"Well, it's true. Lucius was training me to be a Death Eater. Still is. But...Voldemort kills. I've got no problem with a bit of good old-fashioned bigotry and hate, but I'm not up for murder." Draco's head was swimming.

"Voldemort kills, indeed," said Julian seriously. "But he let Lucius do the honours with me. He laughed when he did it. He was laughing so hard he could barely get the words out, but it worked well enough."

"Was it the Killing Curse?"

"Yes, thank Merlin," said Julian. "Quick, at least. But I wasn't finished with the world. I've been here, in what used to be my study, ever since. I think my attachment to the waking world was strongest here. You used to love this room, Draco, when you were a baby."

Draco's breath was catching in his throat like a dying man's. I can't believe this. None of it. First my mother comes up with the sudden revelation that my father's really my uncle, and she jumped straight out of her widow's weeds and into the sack with him as soon as he made an offer; and now I'm slowly getting hypothermic in the Oak Room while talking to the ghost of my real father, who was murdered by my uncle in a fit of pique fourteen years ago under the watchful eye of He-Who-Must-Not-Be...oh, screw it...Voldemort. Now we get the little flying purple elephants and the white-robed crew from St. Mungo's.

Julian was talking again. "I know this must be hard for you to take in."

"You could say that," Draco said levelly. "What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to say to Lucius? What about the rest of the world?"

Julian was silent. Draco noticed he was slowly fading away. "Don't go! I want some answers!"

"....remember...." and he was gone.

Well, I'm hardly likely to forget this, now am I?

The Oak Room was once more silent and empty except for Draco and his shadow. So furious and so miserable he could barely walk straight, Draco stalked out of the room and down the stairs, tapping secret panels with his wand as he passed. A corridor opened up off the second-floor foyer, leading down into darkness. Out. Got to get out of here. Somehow it will all be better if I can just get out of this house.

He muttered the password that would release the wards on the back door, and slipped out into the summer thunderstorm, running away into the rainswept darkness of the vast parklands. Part of his mind knew he'd have to come back, have to find a way to pretend to everybody that nothing had changed; but for now, he had no choice but to blunder through the pelting rain, running away from everything he'd heard and seen, everything he didn't want to believe.