June 5, 2003
Draco felt cautiously optimistic about his birthday.
"Theo should be along soon," said Blaise.
"It's fine, we can wait to order," Draco reassured him and waved the server off for the third time.
"Of course," agreed the demure voice to his right.
Silence fell again and Draco ignored the twinge of awkward discomfort. He'd hoped that increasing the amount of time spent with his friends in the company of his girlfriend might work to also bring them all closer together. Or at least, to the point where conversations felt less forced.
Letting out a rushing exhale of relief, Draco spotted his gangly friend in his Unspeakable robes ambling towards their table.
"Happy birthday!"
Theo gave Draco a hearty handshake, and presented him with a wrapped box.
"You really didn't have to bring these," chuckled Draco.
"It's tradition, mate," countered Theo and he bestowed a quick kiss on Blaise's lips. In his periphery, Draco thought he saw Astoria stiffen.
"Hello Astoria, you look lovely as always."
"Thank you, Theodore. What's the tradition?" She gestured a dainty hand at the wrapped box.
"Jelly Slugs. They're his favourite."
"Oh."
Not, "Oh I didn't know that about you!"
Not, "Oh, I should have known that!"
Not, "Oh, Draco, why didn't you tell me? That's so sweet Theo!"
Just, "Oh."
They'd been dating for almost a year. Since the celebration of some little pureblood's graduation from Hogwarts the previous summer. Daphne and Madam Greengrass had been chatting with Draco and Narcissa when Astoria approached for introductions. Draco couldn't remember which of the women had introduced them and then introduced the idea of Draco escorting Astoria to some upcoming gala and Draco had agreed because she was pretty and nice.
Almost a year later and Astoria kept up both her beauty in Draco's eyes and her amiable demeanour.
So, still pretty and nice.
Which was why he'd brought her to this informal gathering with his friends: a non-controlled environment. No stuffy dress robes and ballrooms, just a birthday lunch with his closest friends. Except Pansy. She'd declined, again, when Draco informed her the restaurant was in Diagon.
He'd hoped to witness Astoria coming out of her debutante shell a bit more, but thus far the only break in the facade he'd witnessed was the brief downturn of her mouth as Theo approached their table.
It could have been because they'd been sitting at this table for 20 minutes waiting for Theo to arrive. Or it could have been Theo and Blaise's intertwined hands resting atop the table.
Draco always admired this about the pair: quietly defiant in their love where Draco would have thrown a tantrum at every perceived slight cast their way in public. They attended events together like any other couple and firmly corrected every "well-meaning" elder who thought it their place to ask when these two "confirmed bachelors" would find themselves a nice witch to settle down with and produce heirs.
Blaise, ever more delicate in these situations than he needed to be, would usually say, "Theo and I are quite content together," or something gorgeously saccharine like, "Theo is the perfect life partner for me, thank you."
Theo unfailingly offered the blunt response of, "We're gay."
Draco had almost spat out his champagne on a snort of laughter the first time he heard it.
Astoria never laughed at that one.
She didn't laugh much today either. She shifted a lot in her chair, an odd movement for someone of her pedigree. Little twitches and fidgets when Blaise would kiss the back of Theo's hand after a compliment or when Theo slung his arm around the back of Blaise's chair while they waited for a course.
Blaise and Draco kept the conversation moving today, and Draco thought Theo looked a bit more haggard than usual.
"Work all right Theo? Your research project still thriving?"
Something flashed across Theo's face. A shadow that took Draco by surprise. He may be an enigmatic sort, but still an open book even if the words remained undecipherable.
"I'm thinking of moving on to other work," Theo replied cryptically. With nothing else to be said about his Unspeakable research, they talked about Blaise's healing instead.
Draco's initial cautious optimism about the day held, but barely.
Birthday sex after an intimate dinner in his new home was a nice way to cap off the day.
Nice. Like Astoria. They fucked and it felt nice. Draco couldn't pinpoint why he couldn't be more grateful for having the privilege of shagging a gorgeous woman semi-regularly.
She seemed content to clutch his arm at galas. She supported all his charitable endeavours. She said the right things to his mother. She kissed him and touched him and made him feel desired.
But she looked uncomfortable when Draco woke up shaking and sweating, when she deigned to stay the night. She called for a house-elf if he screamed in his sleep. She deftly steered the course of conversation when he brought up his father. She looked unnerved when Draco said things like, "I was afraid of disappointing my family, and it led to some of the most regrettable actions. I wish I could have done things differently."
Conversational threads that might have led to confessional unburdening of past sins stayed buried instead. Theo and Blaise assumed this role instead, but Draco couldn't help but wonder whether the person who sometimes shared his bed, and seemed to be angling to share his name, might one day serve this function?
He'd tried asking her about her experiences, tried to find common ground on this insane, generation-defining trauma. But that line of questioning merely met more blinks, stares, and puzzled statements. "But we were safe. My family wasn't bothered."
He stopped bringing up the war.
As she redressed and prepared to take her leave, Draco took a risk, and gave in to the temptation to introduce something incendiary into the air between them.
"Do my friends bother you?"
"Bother me?"
"You seemed uncomfortable today."
Astoria said nothing to his statement.
"Is it because they're together or because they don't hide it?"
A confrontational question that Draco tried to voice in the most non-confrontational tone he could muster. They seemed to play this game of causing the least offense possible when discussing anything remotely intriguing. Draco hadn't realised how stifling that felt until this moment.
She finished clasping her robes and stared at him pensively. "It's simply… unorthodox and rather pointless don't you think? They can't have heirs. Their families wouldn't approve."
Astoria phrased her answer the way she'd most likely been trained to phrase such an answer. One that made her horrid opinion quite plain without sounding rude.
"But they are each other's family. Have been since before the war. Surely you can understand that?"
She blinked at him. She'd definitely comprehended the words from Draco's mouth, but he could see now that the gulf between understanding and accepting could not be breached by Astoria.
When he'd escorted her to the Floo so they could exchange stilted goodbyes, Draco couldn't tell if she was angry with him. Had he ever seen her angry?
Astoria barely tolerating the presence of Blaise and Theo wouldn't help promote her from "dating" to "betrothed." Despite the fact that Narcissa enjoyed the concept of this match becoming permanent, with whole-hearted support from Lucius, Draco thought it might be best to bring things to an end.
Sorry Mother, sorry Father, he tried.
Inscribe it on his gravestone: Here lies Draco Malfoy. He tried.
"Hello Father."
"Draco."
Narcissa generally did most of the talking during these visits.
Some do-gooder law firm outside the Ministry had kicked up a fuss about prisoners' rights last year, and so now as long as Draco and Narcissa surrendered their wands for the visit, Lucius did not need to be chained to a chair behind a magical barrier.
Instead, they sat at a sterile table in a sterile room and Narcissa filled all the depressing silence with inane chatter. Or at least, it sounded inane to Draco's ears, but he could see the way his father drank down every little detail, every speck of attention from his wife, every crumb of normal life outside Azkaban's walls.
"And how have you been keeping your time lately Draco?"
Attention now paid to Draco by his father conjured a tiny thrill of satisfaction, though he knew this type of relationship might have been perhaps more satisfying had it not taken a prison sentence to reach this point.
Per usual, Draco filled him in on the various charities they'd tied their names to, and how Blaise and Theo were progressing in their respective careers. Lucius's lip curled at the mention of their "plebeian" professions but he made no derogatory comments about their relationship.
He'd made that mistake a year ago and Draco cut him down so quickly with a quip about being locked away and therefore unworthy to have an opinion at all that Narcissa had to jump in to keep the peace. And so Lucius kept his views about Draco's friends to himself.
"You're enjoying your new home?" asked Lucius.
"I am."
"Good. Excellent practice for when you marry and take over the running of the Manor. On that front, I take it things are still progressing nicely with Miss Greengrass?"
"Yes, Astoria will accompany me to the St. Mungo's gala next weekend."
He'd take her to the gala and then break things off, but Lucius could hear about that at next month's visit.
"I look forward to meeting the young lady soon."
Draco once asked Astoria if she'd like to accompany him on a visit to his father, as it would require both Lucius and Draco to fill out a Ministry form. But she'd declined.
"She looks forward to meeting you as well."
Lucius gave an approving nod. The sort of reaction that younger Draco coveted more than anything. His father doled them out several times a visit. Things would be strained for the foreseeable future, but Draco held onto a shred of hope that upon his release things might look different at home.
Narcissa gave her husband an indulgent smile. "How are you feeling dear? Have you been sleeping? Eating regularly? We'll have to get everything ready for your welcome home dinner in a few months so you must tell me which dishes to have prepared."
Even through a prison sentence, she tried to dote on him.
"Oh it will be so nice to have everyone home again," enthused Narcissa, as if she and Draco had also been away. It also conveniently ignored the fact that Draco lived in his own, separate home now.
Draco wondered if his father's return would act like a Time-Turner for the Malfoy family, at least within the walls of the Manor. They could return to the brief respite of a peaceful familial life afforded to them during Draco's childhood and early adolescence.
As Draco and his mother said their goodbyes until next month with Lucius, another prisoner escorted by two guards passed by them. The prisoner's face looked vaguely familiar to Draco, but the frame was all wrong; like a portrait of a person that didn't quite match their true likeness, but was recognisable all the same. The young convict still had the broad features and wide shoulders, but had lost a significant amount of weight.
Where Lucius had looked more or less the same, the slimmer man barely resembled the thick-muscled youth from Draco's past.
"Goyle?"
A slow blink of the man's eyes as he looked at Draco. Another slow blink that triggered recognition.
"Malfoy?"
Draco stared into the gaunt face of his former friend, unsure of how to conduct a social nicety in a prison corridor, as one conversational participant would soon be locked in a cell and the other would return to an opulent manor home.
Goyle gave another baleful blink and offered a peculiar statement. "If you see Pansy, tell her 'thanks.' I haven't been able to send post for a bit."
The guards gave a gruff "move along now," and Narcissa swept Draco down the hall with her. Draco only half-listened to his mother's excited chattering about all her schemes and plans for his father's release. A strange emotion rose within him that he'd not felt before in association with Goyle: guilt.
Lucius Malfoy came home sooner than expected.
Draco had just finished dinner when his mother's Patronus appeared in front of him. The black heron spoke quickly, almost out of breath: "Draco come home now, it's your father."
He Floo'ed immediately into the drawing room to find a strange collection of people in addition to his mother. Three Aurors; two he recognised and one he did not.
Harry Potter and Angelina Johnson stood stiffly in their official uniforms just behind a well-built, gruff looking older wizard.
But Narcissa didn't bother with introductions or explanations as she fell into Draco's arms crying and shaking. He couldn't quite make out her words but thought he heard, "he's gone, he's gone, Draco…"
The unfamiliar Auror cleared his throat and stepped forward.
"Mr. Malfoy, I'm Gawain Robards, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. As we have just informed your mother, your father, Lucius Abraxas Malfoy, was killed at Azkaban prison earlier this evening."
"Killed?" Draco echoed blankly.
"We're still gathering facts for the formal investigation. As my reporting Aurors," he gestured behind himself to Potter and Johnson, "were notified of an incident at the prison, it appears one of the guards in your father's block performed The Killing Curse, unprovoked. We'll release his body to you once the forensic healers have finished their work."
Draco gently deposited his sobbing mother into an armchair and stared numbly back at Robards. The older man talked through some procedure or other but Draco couldn't quite hear anything besides an odd buzzing in his ears.
He thought Johnson might have brought his mother a cup of tea. He thought Potter might have stoically reported on some of the case details and offered condolences to both him and his mother. Robards took his leave first and Draco might have shaken his hand and accepted some official stack of parchment. Draco thought he should speak or cry or scream but his body seemed to have disconnected from any and all neural pathways and didn't think he could do much of anything.
Mights and Shoulds and Coulds chased in an endless furious loop of frantic confusion around Draco's mind.
Potter and Johnson remained behind after Robards departed and suddenly Draco wanted to laugh.
Good one, Potter, but I'm in no mood.
He felt his mother's hand squeezing his but she couldn't seem to manage any words. Which left Draco to compartmentalise enough to first pose a string of monotone questions and suppress the urge to give in to an inappropriate emotional reaction to his father's death.
Not death. Murder.
His father had been murdered, Potter said. Potter spat out some self-righteous speech about how this wasn't proper justice, how he and Johnson planned to launch a thorough investigation into the inner workings of Azkaban and how they'd had suspicions about some nefariousness going on there.
And Draco stood there in silence, once again fighting the urge to laugh.
Draco had never experienced Potter being incensed on the Malfoy family's behalf. Surely he'd entered some alternate dimension. Things seemed to happen around him in a whirl of moments. The hazy passage of time and events were akin to the sensation of the dream he hadn't thought about for a long time now.
Theo, if this is one of your dream things, I swear to Merlin I will have my revenge this time.
He'd have to question the validity of reality later, because his mother continued to weep and if this were real life, then Draco was now head of the family and must act accordingly.
"Potter I—"
"—Robards found the guard, apparently his wife had been murdered by a Death Eater, but that was Macnair and he's dead, so why he'd go after your father—it doesn't make any sense—"
"Potter—"
"Don't you think it's a conflict of interest to have victims or spouses of victims overseeing the prisoners? This is exactly what Hermione and Sterling have been warning people about—"
"Potter!"
The immortal git finally stopped pacing and running hands through his ever-unkempt hair to pay Draco attention.
"This is all rather—look could you just—could you just tell us which one of these papers you need me to sign so we can bring my father—my father's body home."
Potter looked like he wanted to say more but thankfully Johnson sprang into action and pulled the parchment from his hand to find the one he needed first.
"I'm sorry, Malfoy. I really am. Mrs. Malfoy, I'm sorry, I know he—" Potter's offering of remorse at Lucius Malfoy's death trailed off into the awkward nothing of a statement that had no elegant endpoint.
Johnson said something kind to his mother and then to him that Draco's numb mind did not retain. They promised to keep him and Narcissa apprised of any developments in the case.
They left the Malfoys to contemplate their new reality as a family of two.
They laid Lucius to rest in the family plot at the far end of the Manor's grounds.
Astoria stood by his side all through the funeral and Draco clutched her hand like the lifeline and support he needed and wanted. It seemed like neither.
Blurred faces of people dressed in black robes shuffled up to him in an endless stream of offered condolences and grim expressions. Whether they meant their words of comfort or pitying looks, Draco neither knew nor cared.
He only briefly appreciated the presence of Blaise, Theo, and Pansy; Draco particularly grateful that Pansy ventured out of her home and self-imposed seclusion to show him support today.
When Draco finally disembarked the horrifying carousel of the day of grieving a man who'd somehow managed to give Draco everything and still left him lacking, he again experienced a brief moment of wanting to let out a loud laugh.
Because he suddenly remembered that Theo's dream had featured a very much alive Lucius. But the real Lucius now lay buried six feet under next to the rest of his forebears, leaving Narcissa a widow.
And why the fuck couldn't Draco feel anything?
His father was dead and Draco was alive and wasn't that the natural order of things? Children buried their parents as a rite of passage, but surely they had a sense of something other than: now fucking what?
This wasn't going to plan. Draco's life wasn't going to plan. Lucius should have come home, his parents should be happy together, Draco would then find a wife, they'd host a lavish wedding, take a few years for themselves then perhaps welcome a child or two for his parents to spoil and…
Now fucking what?
Potter kept sending him these bloody owls with urgent messages at all fucking hours and Draco felt fucking nothing.
He'd shored up every financial matter that concerned his father's will, cancelled appearances at several upcoming galas, arranged the whole funeral, made sure his mother ate regular meals—because that's what adult children did upon the passing of a parent—and now he'd been left with an empty stretch of life before him.
So he did not need Potter and his bothersome owls trying to rope Draco into some society-saving mission. He'd been a few quill strokes away on several occasions from telling Potter where he could shove his hero-complex.
Some irate guard had murdered Lucius Malfoy in a misguided attempt to seek retribution for a dead wife. Hardly shocking. They'd caught the man responsible; he'd now serve time in Azkaban. Done. One less thing for Draco to handle.
That Harry Potter experienced more outrage over Draco's father's demise should have inspired something other than apathy. But Draco couldn't bring himself to care.
The Malfoys had served their sentences, donated to reputable causes, stayed out of politics, avoided scandal and yet that had not been enough for their world. Perhaps Lucius deserved to pay with his life for some of his actions and perhaps Draco deserved to be left with a gaping maw of creeping nothingness.
Pride had not felled the Malfoy family, but rather the futility of an honest effort.
And speaking of futility: Draco had one more unpleasant task to perform once every last mourner had left Malfoy Manor after paying respects to Lucius.
He dealt the death blow to the current stone around his neck as he escorted Astoria to the Floo.
"Astoria, thank you for being with me today but… I don't think I can see you anymore."
His statement met a tilt of her head and a brief flutter of her long lashes.
"You wish to end our courtship?"
Fucking Salazar.
"Yes. Apologies for having wasted your time."
He should start a betting pool with Blaise and Theo for how long until some betrothal announcement appeared in the Daily Prophet featuring Astoria and some other rich, boring pureblood.
Draco fetched a bottle of Pansy's favorite Merlot from the Manor cellar and decided to deliver his gratitude in person.
He found her at her writing desk, surrounded by neat stacks of parchment and legal books.
"I come bearing wine and you look like you're studying for NEWTs."
"I've been doing research for Greg's parole hearing."
"Greg? As in Goyle?"
"Yes. Greg."
Draco had buried his father today, ended a long-term relationship, and now happened upon his hermit of a friend conducting an advocacy campaign for an old schoolmate.
"I'll be honest Pansy, this might be the strangest thing I've experienced today, which should tell you something."
Goyle's vacant expression and shrunken form surfaced to the forefront of his mind. "Is there uhh… well can I help you somehow?"
Pansy turned towards him and he saw a gleam in her blue eyes. Through his fog of performative humanity during the burial, he'd not noticed but he saw it now. Her hair once again sharp and well-cut, rosiness to her cheekbones, and a determined glint he hadn't seen since Hogwarts.
"Have you heard of this Mandell and Associates firm? They're making a big push for some Prisoners' Rights Act. If you testified for them… I don't know, it could help sway the courts. Or if you threw your name behind it publicly, maybe. I told Granger I'd ask you and she thought it was a good idea."
"Did you say Granger?"
"Yes, I've been writing to her and she's come by a few times."
"Hermione Granger?"
"Yes, I wrote to the firm when I discovered my letters weren't being delivered to Greg. And they can't put me on the visitation list to see him because I'm not a blood relative or a spouse. He hasn't got anyone, Draco."
Like me, went unsaid, but Draco felt the slice of guilt all the same.
"Anyway, the firm is trying to launch an outside investigation of the prison given what happened to your father and Granger thinks this could be a backdoor way in to get this Act passed and make some reforms."
He rifled through some of the parchment on her writing desk. Studies from both magical and Muggle scholarly journals, trial transcripts, and letters from a legal team.
"This is what you've been working on? Alone?"
"Not quite alone, Granger's been a big help. Did you know there was a big discrepancy in the sentences handed down after the war for the same crimes? I'm having Granger look into whether Greg's sentencing was above-board and see if we can't move up his parole hearing date."
Draco actually did know that. Especially since Lucius was to spend a laughably short time away for all his willful wrong-doing. But when you turn over enough Death Eater names and testify against everyone and can afford a top-notch legal team with plenty of blackmail material on certain members of the Wizengamot, then you end up with quite the short stint. Not that it mattered now.
But it did little to dilute the shock of seeing a studious Pansy and hearing her speak of Granger in a positive tone.
"You're friends with Granger now?"
Pansy shot him a withering glare. "Hardly. She's still so interfering and annoying, just with slightly less horrific hair nowadays."
Draco grinned, delighted at seeing some of the old spark of Pansy's personality shine through.
"But she cares. She actually cares," Pansy let out a reluctant laugh. "She's the most reliable person in my life right now."
"Pansy, I'm sorry—"
"Don't. It wasn't meant as a dig, Draco. You've been mourning your father and busy securing your legacy with your perfect little heiress. Your eventual wedding will give your mother something to look forward to with your father gone." Her face broke into a giddy smile. "Ooh I cannot wait to see Narcissa go into full wedding planning mode, she'll be in her element."
"I broke it off with Astoria. Just before I came over."
Pansy blinked once then grinned. "Thank Merlin, she was so bloody boring."
They laughed for a long while and Draco allowed that relief to rush out of him at finally indulging in the action of mirth when it felt more appropriate.
"What a day you've had. A funeral and a break-up."
Draco sat heavily in an armchair. He could deal with all that later. Or never. Preferably the latter.
"Pansy I know things have been… tough for you since… since Hogwarts, but why this crusade? Why Goyle?"
He realised what Pansy now had that he did not: a purpose.
"You probably don't remember much from Seventh Year, as you were often—elsewhere—but a lot of us were left to fend for ourselves. Greg didn't have you ordering him around anymore and he sort of just let Vincent take over that role. But some nights I could tell he… anyway, we'd never talked much before but some nights he..."
She trailed off and collected herself.
"I just started sending him some books, that's all. But some of the things he wrote back… Draco I'm really worried for him in there. I don't think anyone would have dared mess with your father while he was imprisoned, but someone like Greg, with no family to check in on him…"
She frowned but assured Draco she didn't need his immediate assistance and urged him to take some time to deal with his grief before jumping in to help her.
But the act of grieving could wait, in his opinion. A useless preoccupation that Draco could delay.
He returned to Malfoy Manor for the night in case his mother needed him around. Not that one would notice his absence in a home that size, but it didn't sit right with him to leave her alone after today's events.
Narcissa was in her favourite sitting room, the one she always liked to retire to after dinner. She stared down at a piece of parchment with wide, almost frightened eyes.
"Mother, what's wrong? I told you to let me skim the letters first for threats and—"
"It's not a threat. It's from my sister."
It took longer than it should have to remember his mother was the youngest of three sisters.
"Are you all right?"
A question not often voiced in the halls or rooms of Malfoy Manor.
Narcissa didn't answer but to hand him two letters.
"These are for you," she said softly and left for her private quarters, the letter from her estranged sister clutched tightly in her fist.
He stared after her proud, retreating form, wondering what Andromeda Tonks had written to his mother.
He turned his attention to the two pieces of mail in his hand. The first letter had already been opened; an update from Potter on the investigation and trial of his father's murderer. Auror Potter had scrawled a brief personal note at the bottom offering condolences that made Draco's lip curl at both the abysmal penmanship and the unnecessary pity in the words.
The second letter contained neat, unfamiliar handwriting. The contents of the letter seemed to embody the sentiments of a person who'd written this while of two minds about both the purpose of the letter and the character of the recipient.
It was from her.
"Malfoy,
My personal feelings about your father and his life choices aside, please accept my condolences for your loss. Though we have not spoken in years, nor really spoken at all in the realm of cordiality, I felt compelled to write to you. I cannot imagine how you might be feeling at the moment.
I do hope you believe that I truly am sorry for your loss. Perhaps not for your father, personally, but I know he meant a lot to you, even if he did some rather detestable things. I'm not trying to be rude, but I didn't think you'd appreciate any false words from me about the man, nor do I think you are the sort to subscribe to the hagiographic tendencies of the masses when it comes to the dead. I would hope you could at least have faith in me as a person who is sincere in her empathy for a peer.
Harry can't tell me much about the circumstances of his current investigation into Azkaban, but I have managed to at least secure him for a testimonial before the Wizengamot.
My law firm is building momentum behind a Prisoners' Rights Act and given the recent tragic death of your father, I had hoped to recruit your assistance. I'm not sure if Pansy has mentioned, but we've been in contact for some months as I'm working on an appeal for a friend of hers.
If you have any interest in helping, please send me an owl. I think you could make a difference, if you're willing.
Sincerely,
Hermione Granger."
A/N: Thanks for reading! Thank you to my beta/friend mrsbutlertron for all her work. You can find me on tumblr: heyjude19-writing.