Story Title: Requirements of Parole
School and Theme: Mohoutokoro/Heritage
Special Rule: Not applicable this round
Mandatory Prompt: [Emotion] Rage
Additional Prompt: [Quote] "The version of me you created in your mind is not my responsibility."
Year: 4
Word count(minus Authors Note): 2185
Special notes important for judging: Post war EWE fic
Trigger warning: mentions of therapy and an intentional representation of the practice that is both unhealthy to the patient and the practitioner to reflect the choice of prompts
Tick, tock.
Draco's eyes shot over to the mechanical muggle clock on the wall. He despised the thing; between the horribly stupid looking plastic case, the imprinted and very anatomically incorrect design of dragons and the stylized blasts of 'fire' to represent the hour and minute hands on its face were grounds enough for him to chuck it into the wall until it broke into unrepairable pieces. He despised being here. He despised the Ministry for forcing him and others like him into this… this abuse of power!
"Your not speaking to me is all the same as not making any progress, Mr. Malfoy. I'm sure you remember what the Ministry will do if that were to happen."
Grey eyes flashed with unfathomable anger as his head turned to glare at the witch looking at him so nonchalantly. "I'm sure that would make you happy, wouldn't it? Throw the terrorist in prison for the next twenty years beside his murderer father because he's not bowing to the whip of the new master in charge of the castle," he said, the word 'terrorist' being spat with such rage and vitriol that it was a wonder the floor was not melting.
"You're admitting you were a terrorist by choice then? That is—" the Mind Healer from St. Mungo's peered down into a binder before looking back up as she ticked a checkmark on a list "—step one of your Ministry rehabilitation complete. Only took you six sessions to actually say something." The witch's face looked neutral even though her eyes showed nothing but annoyance. "Step two is admitting why you were actively terrorized and tried to murder upstanding citizens of this fine country of ours. Between the number of people you assisted the Carrow twins in torturing, the attempted murder of Albus Dumbledore and everything else–"
Draco barked with cynical laughter. "Y-you think I wanted to join up with that monster by choice?" he asked between breathless wheezing. "For all the know-how and required instruction to be certified as a Mind Healer, you are incredibly stupid."
The witch scowled fiercely as she scribbled a note in the file. Death Eater subject continues to show hostile and xenophobic tendencies. The note was with red ink courtesy of a minor charm changing the color of ink as it reached the nib on her fountain pen.
"The only reason I joined Vo.. that monstrosity, the only reason anyone in my generation joined his cause, can be boiled down to one sentiment. A sentiment even you can understand," Draco said with a scoff once he got himself under control. "A sentiment that even a mud.. muggleborn like you could fit through that narrow crevice of a rock you call a head. We had no feckin' choice."
The Mind Healer scribbled another furious note in the file.
"From a young age, I was burdened by four things and a curse. Number one, I am cursed to be a Pureblood. Everyone thinks it should be an exalted lifestyle, get everything you want at the snap of your fingers, but do you want to know the truth? The pressure it puts on your shoulders is astronomically staggering. Everyone who doesn't hate you automatically because you are a Pureblood is watching your every move for weaknesses that they can exploit," Draco grimaced as he leaned forward with a grim light in his eyes. His hands opened and clenched close a number of times.
Tick, tock.
"That 'woe is me' dragon dung is not flying, Malfoy. Privilege and pomp is all you ever expressed. I'm not buying this whole 'I had no other choice' tale you're trying to spin, and I know for a fact that no one else will either. Particularly not all the people you've attacked, defamed, threatened and hurt over the years." Narrowed eyes showed anger and resentment for the wizard across from her. This excuse for a man should have been Kissed for his crimes once He -Who-Should-Not-Be-Named was killed permanently and all the Death Eaters were rounded up. The public outcry as the old guard Purebloods with more galleons than sense got off scot free or lightly with prison sentences had nearly caused massive riots; riots that were quelled only cooler heads. The talking points escaped her at the moment, she had been part of the near riotous.
"I wouldn't expect you to get it, but let's continue, shall we? Let's talk about burdens and why, when I say I had no choice, I mean I had no choice." Draco's posture went properly straight again. "Draco Abraxas Malfoy, son of Lucius Abraxas Malfoy and Narcissa Malfoy nee Black. It is my name, the very heritage running through my veins, and the first true burden. My father was a sycophant for that half-blood monster and preyed upon those who were lesser in his eyes. My mother is a daughter of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, a historically dark allied bloodline who shared similar views as my father where it concerns non-Purebloods and creatures. While my mother did not espouse such views, she did nothing to combat the teaching my father forced upon me as a boy."
The witch scribbled another note. "So you blame your parents for you being a monster?" she asked, peering over the edge of her notepad.
Draco's eyes hardened at the words as a chair to his right erupted into flame and was little more than an ash pile in seconds. "Leave my mother out of this," he hissed in a dangerously edged tone. "She had no hand in the formal training of my heirship up until the time I got my Hogwarts letter. The Malfoy Lords have always trained their male heirs and the Ladies trained the daughters, traditionally speaking. If my mother dared to interfere, not even her standing a daughter of the House of Black would—"
"You're implying your mother is a weak woman and unable to put her foot down in the raising of an ignoble son, I see."
The unfiltered anger that coursed through Draco's veins could kill an elephant with its toxicity. Who was this woman to dare extrapolate such ludicrous assumptions from his words? "She was a Slytherin, just as my father and I were. Some traditions are meant to be preserved. Some are meant to be honored. As a daughter of House Black, she understands that far better than my father can ever hope to even begin perceiving," he spat out forcefully.
"Excusing cowardice for traditi—"
Tick, tock.
Draco got to his feet with barely contained wrath making his clenched fists shake in their white knuckle grip. "I find it hard to see how forcing me to reflect on the past is going to change anything!" he snapped, one arm being flung to the side in a careless display of emotion. "I did some messed up stuff. Fine, I admit it. Some really messed up stuff—"
"You were instrumental in the criminal harassment of countless students, guilty as an accessory to false imprisonment and torture, attempted to murder Albus Dumbledore and complicit in the torture of your fellow students at Hogwarts under the leadership of the Death Eater Severus Tobias Snape and the Carrow twins, just to name a few of those said acts."
"What in the bloody hell do you want from me?" Draco snarled. "I was poisoned from a young age to hate anyone and anything that was not in my family's sphere of influence. I was raised to hate those that spurned me. I was made to do and believe a lot of things I had no full comprehension of!" He began pacing like a caged animal.
Tick, tock.
"Will you silence that stupid clock? How is anyone supposed to think with that infernal racket breaking on their mind?!"
The Mind Healer made no motion to silence the clock or move from her spot as some note was written down and underlined several times. The look on her face could almost be described as inquisitive as she brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. "What about the other three things, Mr. Malfoy? You said there were four things that factored in you having 'no choice' but to do as you did, commit the atrocities you have done in the name of the so-called 'Pureblood cause'. You've already laid some of the causal blame on your bloodlines. I would be lying if I said I wasn't curious about the other explanations you have."
"The deplorable character of people around me, expectation and pressure. I was forced into the company of those who believed like my father and his father before him did, Blood Purists and Blood Supremacists. I was young, and so were the people in my company. We were impressionable. We were already being browbeaten at home during our heirship training, so reinforcing those lessons, those views and beliefs in a group setting was child's play for men like our fathers. Hatred for the non-Purebloods, the condescending view on what were creatures and their rights, the abject loathing of muggles; these were taken to a new low because of how they reinforced these lessons upon us."
The Mind Healer absently wondered if the way that these lessons were imparted and reinforced included cursing the children with pain spells. It was not illegal back then, and even if a Pureblood Heir dared to raise the matter with the DMLE, their parents could claim such actions weren't prohibited under the law; it was not like they were torturing their children, but 'disciplining' them, they would claim, and unfortunately, they would skate by with the flimsy excuse. Even if it explained a lot, it did not excuse anything of what they did.
Beside the Mind Healer, a timer went off signifying the end of the session. It was louder than her clock, a conscious choice of tool she used to annoy the wizard before her since he hated her clock. "Well, it would seem our session is over. I will see you next week. Oh, and Mr. Malfoy?" the witch asked as she silenced it by hitting the button on the timer.
Draco, who was already three quarters of the way out of the room, stopped only to look over his shoulder at the Mind Healer with a hard look. "What?" he asked with a dead, even tone.
"You'd be better off complying with the terms of your parole. I heard that monster Greyback and his pack were tossed into Azkaban recently. It would such a shame if you refused to meet what was required and you ended up in there. A bigger shame if you didn't make it out. From what I heard those feral beasts have been murdering or turning every Death Eater they can get their monstrous claws on in there."
"The version of me you created in your mind is not my responsibility," Draco sneered.
"What version am I supposed to have then? That you are solely the victim?" the Mind Healer asked.
"What should I care? I know what I went through. I know the horrors forced upon me all for the sake of what my father called established tradition. I know my sins and if you actually believe this dragon dung that you're spouting off about, I'm ashamed of whoever qualified you as a Mind Healer. You are meant to be more valuable to people than the Healers who mend the broken bodies that come into the ward. You are supposed to help mend the broken minds, the broken spirits, and here you are berating me for what I did out of self-preservation and lack of choice? Your parents must be so proud."
"Of what I made out of a broken educational system that was stacked against me and hated me because my dad wasn't also my brother? I would hope they'd be proud of me but I wouldn't know. Your kind murdered them for being muggles" the witch said with a hard yet even stare.
"Working with that pest Potter has taught me one thing I agree with and that is you can't please everyone. Not even when you offer them the truth on a silver platter. I pity you. Your world view is eschewed with hate driven bias you won't even consider for a moment that those you think to be the bad guys, the villain's that should be burned at the stake, aren't always the people you make them out to be" Draco scoffed before leaving through the floo.
"Some people never learn." The Mind Healer sighed as her dicta quill fell flat. A knock on her door signaled her next appointment was early. "No rest for the wicked, I suppose. At least this patient is far more receptive to the treatment and amicable." Her tone was one of exasperation as she spoke to herself. Standing from her desk, she traipsed over to the door and opened it to come face-to-face with Harry Potter, The Man Who Conquered himself. "Come in, Mr. Potter, I trust your week was relatively normal and not people plotting to murder you at every turn."