Better be Slytherin
XLVI
Treacherous

The doors to the drawing room burst open with a bang that made the windows shake, and his mother screamed and in the darkness he saw the Dark Lord striding into the room, almost gliding, with the giant snake slithering somewhere behind him, hissing loudly, angrily, blood-thirstily.

"YOU LET THE BOY ESCAPE?!" he roared as soon as he'd entered, his wand raised high, and Draco thought they all knew what was coming to them. He slashed his wand in the air once before they had the chance to answer, and Lucius fell to the floor suddenly in an unnatural lurch, a surprised high-pitched scream at the sudden torturous curse thrown at him.

"My lord! Please—" it was Bellatrix, Draco understood, but Voldemort wouldn't spare her this time, for she had been the one to summon him... and they'd all let Potter escape.

"Crucio!" The Dark Lord's voice, high and cold, wasn't hissing like normally, he was shouting, screaming, roaring – Draco had never seen him this angry... He winced and held his arms up for pointless protection but the pain didn't come – it was Bellatrix's turn this time.

She screamed, it was a high, ear-piercing sound, frightning to the bones, because Draco had never heard her sound like that. And he knew now that it was his mother's or his own turn...

"Master, please—the boy—" Bellatrix was panting, sobbing, hurrying closer to the Dark Lord who was still striding closer, quickly, ever so quickly, and soon he would be towering over Draco where he lay like a patethic little mouse just before it was fed to a snake. "He had help—he overpowered—forced us to press the Mark, please—my Lord Voldemort..."

"SILENCE!" Bellatrix only earned herself another round of the torture curse, Draco wondered why she even bothered, obviously he wasn't going to be calmed down or reasoned with at a moment like this.

Narcissa lept out, tried to grab Draco and make a run for it, but the Dark Lord then turned his wand onto her – he was to quick for all of them. He whipped it through the air like a sword and blood spurted from her chest and she fell, screaming, crumbling to the floor.

"Narcissa!" Lucius croaxed, moving towards her, while Bellatrix just kept pleading with Voldemort. Draco was screaming now, openly, unabashfully terrified, kneeling over his mother, feeling the Dark Lord standing behind him.

"Stupid woman!" screamed Voldemort, "no-one can escape me... Crucio!"

It was Draco's turn this time, as he'd known, the pain hit him square in the chest and seemed to explode onto the rest of his body, he couldn't see anything, because his eyes were rolled back, but he distantly heard himself scream and vaguely he felt being thrown onto the floor by the curse.

"I TOLD YOU—" he screamed again, "ALL OF YOU—TO NOT SUMMON ME FOR ANYTHING LESS THAN POTTER!"

The effects of the Crucio wore off as he realised he was lying on the floor and that he must've hit his head when he fell because it was aching, thumping profusely, and his hair felt sticky against the dark wooden floor, but he could hardly move, it was so dark, and it hurt so bad...

"I thought I made myself perfectly clear, Lucius," the Dark Lord hissed, "in that I intended to keep the prisoners in the cellar until they provided me with the information I require."

"Yes, my Lord, but—"

Voldemort silenced Lucius with another quick flash of his wand. "Then why is it," he said slowly, hissing now, like the snake he was, like the snake behind him, circling its victims with murder in its eyes, "that the cellar is empty, Wormtail dead, the wand-maker gone, our leverage on old Xenophilius Lovegood set free, and HARRY-POTTER-VICTORIOUS-AGAIN?!"

With the last words he slashed his wand through the air on every syllable, inflicting the Cruciatus curse on Lucius over and over again.

"Forgive us, my Lord—" came the faint sound of Lucius' voice when the Cruciatus curse was wearing off. It frightened and disgusted Draco, because his father, mighty Lucius Malfoy, was lying crumbled and broken on the floor of his own home, an emasculated shell of the man he used to be. And suddenly Draco couldn't for the life of him remember what he'd always admired in his father, aspired to be like.

"Vermin," was all Voldemort bothered to say. And Draco knew that his family could never be redeemed in his eyes now. Maybe that was for the best, maybe he'd finally kill them so it would all be over.

Draco still lay on the floor in something wet that he now realised must be his own blood... Was he dying? It was difficult to keep his eyes opened, his lids were heavy, as if someone was pulling them down...

He glanced sideways, out the window, as his breath came out in rasps, and he thought that please, couldn't someone see them, find them, help them, save them? But all he saw was the majestic, white peacocks perching the hedges on the silent grounds...

It wasn't supposed to be like this, he knew it now more than ever. He'd learnt his lesson.


The night was terrible. The House-Elf doted on them and fed them various potions, when Voldemort had left again. But Draco and Narcissa had lost a lot of blood and he wasn't allowed sleep because of the serious concussion, so Binky had fed him a Sleepless Draught, a thick golden potion, which made it impossible to sleep, even when he tried. The result – he spent the entire night from midnight to dawn, sitting in his bed staring into space, reliving the evening in his head, reliving what had happened with Potter, and then the torture. By dawn, his eyes were burning so badly from the lack of sleep, that when he looked into the large ornate mirror in his bedroom, his eyes were nearly as red as the Dark Lords. However, his pupils were still grey. Thank Merlin, he thought.

He wished he was a few years younger so that he could sneak into his mother ands father's bed and be taken care of. When he was a child, he'd done that after a nightmare, and his parents had stroked his hair and told him he was safe until he wasn't scared anymore and could go back to sleep. After a few years, Lucius had insisted Draco stop this, and would refuse to let him into their bed.

But now, he couldn't wake from the nightmare.

He was still shaking the next day and he didn't look his parents nor aunt in the eyes until he was about to leave for Hogwarts. His eyes were twitching, he'd learnt that they did that after every time Voldemort had tortured him.

He hadn't spoken to his parents all day, they hadn't mentioned anything of what had happened last night, and Bellatrix was still hiding in her room. Ashamed that her beloved master had turned on her? Therefore it surprised him when there was a knock on the door when he was packing his trunk to return to Hogwarts. Worst case, it would be Bellatrix. Best case, it would be Binky, back with some potion that would heal him.

It was neither.

"Draco," it was the weak voice of his mother, also a former inprint of who she'd been. He closed his eyes, stopping in his movements. "Open the door," she whispered. For some reason he didn't want to. Was he angry with her too, or just his father? If he stayed perfectly still, would she believe he wasn't there and leave?

Finally, his great love for his mother took over, and he rose. His hand on the doorknob, he hesitated for a second, but then opened. She was in a silk dressing gown, her long blonde hair dirty and tousled. He knew that beneath the dressing gown was a series of wounds from where Voldemort had sliced her open last night. He swallowed and didn't look. He didn't think he could handle seeing it.

"How are you feeling?" he said softly, letting her inside his large bedroom. When she saw his half-packed trunk on the floor by his bed, she suddenly started crying. Not loudly or obnoxiously. Silent tears ran down her face. It softened him, and he realised he'd been wrong. She was just as much of a victim of this as he was. She was also only in this because of Lucius. She'd never chosen it. She wasn't to be blamed.

She just stood there and looked at his trunk, silently weeping, as if she was losing her son forever, not just for a few months. He moved in and put his arms around her. He was taller than her but still managed to hide his face in her neck like he'd done when he was a child. They rarely embraced, but his loyalty to her was unwavering.

"Don't cry, mother," he mumbled, "I'm only going back to school. Father's here to protect you."

"Who's going to protect you?" she let out, barely audibly.

"I've got Crabbe and Goyle. Besides, Professor Snape is there. I'm only going back for a few months to take my NEWTs like you wanted. Then I'm finished with the place." He was being falsely calm, while his heart was racing and his stomach knotted with anxiety. He could see no future for himself, after finishing his last exams, he saw only darkness. When he was little he'd fantasised about proclaiming his own huge manor house and being a professional Quidditch player (finally beating Potter) and bathing in gold and teasing House-Elves. Now he could see nothing but Voldemort. Being bound to serve him forever, until he died.

"I want you to have this," his mother said. Her tears had stopped and she had straightened up a little, and now she was reaching inside her dressing gown and pulled out her slender black walnut wand. He frowned at her. Lucius had already lost his wand months ago to Voldemort. Was his mother really giving up the last wand in the house?

He opened his mouth to protest, but his mother raised a hand, silencing him. "Your need for it is greater than mine. Draco, you need it for classes. You can't take your NEWTs without a wand—"

"I'll borrow Goyle's or something on the day of the exams!"

Narcissa rolled his eyes. "You'll do no such thing! My son is not going to use some old stick with barely any magic in it. If you take my wand now you will have time to get used to it, to make it truly yours, before your exams arrive. Besides—" she raised her voice as Draco was about to protest again. "Lucius, Bella and I..." she exhaled a tensed breath and avoided eye-contact, "have been ordered to stay inside."

"Stay inside?" said Draco slowly.

"Inside the manor, yes," said Narcissa briefly, turning away to look out the mirror. The sun was setting. "After last night's... incident... the Dark Lord's orders..."

Draco's eyes widened. "He's ordered you to house arrest?!"

"Shhh!" His mother turned to him at once, fear and anger on her face.

"You're going to be here, locked in and wandless? So what will happen if he comes back? If he does what he did last night again? You won't be able to defend yourselves!" He was exasperated.

"It's not going to happen again," she said shortly. "We're staying out of the way for now. Besides, Potter won't exactly come back. He's not stupid enough to get caught twice. Don't worry about your father and I."

"She's still here," he muttered.

Narcissa swallowed. "Bellatrix would never do anything to hurt us." She thrust the wand into his hand, he had no choice. "Take it. Do you need any money? Luckily, Lucius managed to make a withdrawal at Gringott's just last week. And we won't be spending much of it, as we're going to be here."

Draco felt disgusted. His need for Galleons was lesser than ever. "No thank you, mother."

Guilt-stricken, he embraced her one more time before stepping into the fireplace to make his way back to Hogwarts.


Gregory was loyal. It was an odd Slytherin trait, but ambition and loyalty often came hand in hand. Because it was important to pick who you were going to be loyal to, when everyone was climbing recklessly towards their own goals. Greg had chosen Malfoy. Or, rather, he'd accepted that Malfoy had been chosen for him by his dad. They'd been put together to play since they were only a few years old. Pushed together – as if Greg (and Vince too) was a part of the puzzle that was Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy had never minded it. And neither had Greg. He enjoyed having someone to follow. He was never much of a leader anyway and it was easier to know what to do if you were being told.

He trusted Malfoy enough to know that he was being led in the right direction.

He didn't enjoy putting the Cruciatus on the Mudbloods and Blood-Traitors, like Vince did, but he didn't mind too much either. He didn't really think of it. He guessed that was just the way things were. He was just meant to do what he was told. Loyal but cowardly?

Another Slytherin trait.

He was however beginning to wonder if this sheer blind loyalty to Malfoy was getting him anywhere good – or if it was simply getting him in trouble, onto the wrong path? He'd never thought about it before, for six years he'd trodded along in Malfoy's wake, happily doing his bidding. He'd never thought about it until now that Vincent was beginning to complain about it.

Was it true, what Vincent said, that it was pointless hanging after Malfoy now? But then they had wasted the last six years doing so, hadn't they? Then they'd wasted so much of last year guarding the Room of Hidden Things when they could've been doing something more fun (stealing sweets off first years) or actually studied.

"Malfoy's becoming a little Blood-Traitor," Vincent was muttering to him now as they were de-potting Snargaluff pods on the first Friday back at Hogwarts after Easter. "I can feel it coming on. I'm not thick!" Vincent sent a nasty look Malfoy's way. Malfoy was wrinkling his nose at the plant while Nott did all the work. Gregory shrugged, looking down into his lap. He really didn't know anymore, about anything. Not that he ever really had. He had just followed Malfoy, or in his absence, followed Vince. What was he supposed to do now?

"I'd rather fucking follow Pansy round, at least she's not a fucking Blood-Traitor! At least she's still got all the right morals and that... Not like Malfoy."

He'd always been loyal. And he wasn't about to stop. It was just that now he was finding it hard to choose who of his two best friends to stay loyal to.

When they got back to the common room in the afternoon after their last class of the week, Malfoy stood there looking fuming.

"How many times do I have to make myself clear?" he said impatiently. "It's your night to patrol, the two of you, and I've told you several times, that you have to do it before dinner."

"Yeah, so?" said Vincent.

Malfoy groaned and his eyes rolled up into his head. "So, Crabbe, you've already had dinner haven't you!"

Surprisingly, Blaise Zabini came to their defence.

"Get off your high Hippogriff," he said coldly to Malfoy. "You're not their boss, are you?"

Malfoy rounded on him. "I'm Head Boy!"

"We'll go do it now," said Gregory quickly. He couldn't stop himself. He wanted to please Malfoy still. But when he heard Vincent groan beside him, he instantly panicked. He wanted to please Vincent too.

"Off you go then," said Malfoy, patronising. He even shooed them off with a movement of his hands. Vincent was grumbling all the way out of the common room and Gregory hastened along.

He'd manage to upset both his best friends, even though he was trying desperately to make them both contented. How was he going to survive the rest of the year being in the middle of these two, constantly pulled to each side?


When Crabbe and Goyle had left, Crabbe however reluctantly, Draco turned to sit down. Pansy was in the sofa, surrounded as usual by her gang of girls, and seemingly very upset about something that had happened during Transfiguration which Draco didn't take this year. He was glad to be rid of McGonagall. She'd always had something against him.

"You're not sitting there," sneered Zabini. Draco pondered cursing him, and they stared into each other's eyes for a bit, a silent battle. Nott cleared his throat. Finally, Pansy said, "Stop it you two! I'm telling a story."

Zabini rolled his eyes, and then Draco looked away as well and slumped himself down onto an armchair instead.

"I was only, telling Daphne about mine and Queenie's visit to The Black Hippogriff over Easter," said Pansy and nodded to Queenie as if everyone didn't already know who she was. "About how we met a gang of Snatchers. You know? They're out Snatching Mudbloods and Blood-Traitors who're running from the Ministry. Nothing strange about that – hasn't even got anything to do with the Dark Lord..." Pansy rolled her eyes. "When Finnegan and Brown butted in."

Daphne shook her head with sympathetic anger. "They're a pair of tiresome busybodies, aren't they," she said sardonically.

"Saying all sorts of bad things about the Snatchers," Pansy continued as if there had been no interruption. "Really! They're only working for the Ministry? So then I told them," she laughed scornfully. "'Stay out of this, this is a strictly Pureblood conversation."

Greengrass and Wilkes laughed loudly. Nott grinned. Draco felt disappointed in her. He thought he could see a similar emotion on Tracey Davis' face.

Another ten minutes went by in which Pansy relayed the entire exchange; Draco was losing interest and pondering a late night walk in the castle. He was Head Boy after all, who could deny him anything? This Friday evening was incredibly boring anyway. With Pansy's racist stories, and Crabbe and Goyle off patrolling, and Zabini's mere presence... He craved a glass of Fire Whiskey.

"He's barely even Half-Blood," snarled Pansy. "His mum's a Half-Blood and his dad's a Mudblood, isn't he? He's got about a quarter of magical blood in him, then. I told him, 'don't you take that tone with me, I'm Head Girl and one of the Sacred Twenty Eight. Generations of breeding created me. Who do you think you are? Because you're nobody.'"

Her faithful best friends laughed again, but Draco looked away. Momentarily he found her unattractive. He didn't kiss her goodnight when he left the common room without an explanation, and she definitely noticed. What had happened to him?


His thoughtless wandering took him to the Astronomy tower, where he'd stood nearly a year earlier, pointing a shaking wand-arm at the old Headmaster. The memories of this place took him back and he shuddered at the memory. He still wondered what would've happened if he'd taken Dumbledore's offer of help and protection.

Too late now.

A thought was prickling his mind, a thought he'd try to ignore ever since that awful night at the manor a few days ago. What had it meant that he hadn't told anyone it was Potter? Had he now chosen to not choose a side? Was he now in the middle somehow? Between Voldemort and the Order of the Phoenix? Was he brave now or just a coward?

Was he a good person now because he didn't want Voldemort to murder Potter?

Was he a better person, a better man, than his father? The man he'd always admired so, always aspired to be. He loved his father above everything. He idolised Lucius, but he was sure now, after a year or two, that Lucius wasn't good. He'd been fooled. But Lucius was the foundation of Draco's entire personality. What was his identity without his father? He'd never felt allegiance to anyone else, not even his mother or Pansy. But perhaps... Allegiance wasn't the same as loyalty. Or love. He'd always known he was meant to do what his father said.

Was he just breaking loose from his father's ties? Becoming his own man? He wanted to be better, for his mother, for Pansy, for his potential future child. Better than his father.

He'd grown up joking about murder because he wanted to be like his father. But he'd grown up now. He knew murder was real now. And if his father had it right – how come he'd been overpowered by a bunch of kids in the department of mysteries? How come he was now locked inside his own house by his supposed master, wandless and abused and non-worthy?

Everything his family stood for, everything he'd been taught his whole life... he didn't know what was right and what was wrong anymore, everything felt like it had been turned up side down. Had he been cheated?

He remembered when he met Theodore Nott at the age of four... His first friend.

"Daddy said Muggleborns shouldn't be allowed to learn magic," said Draco thoughtfully and proudly at the same time. As if he'd learnt something not everyone was privileged to know.

"So did mine!" said Theodore enthusiastically, "He says it's bad."

They hadn't questioned it. They'd trusted their fathers blindly. But was it really true? Or had everything they'd grown up believing been a lie?

He didn't even know what his own principles were anymore. That scared him.

He remembered Pansy laughing with her friends just now in the common room, and he wondered whether she would still love him if she knew what a traitor he'd been the past year. If she knew he'd been a few seconds from accepting Dumbledore's offer of help; if she knew he'd refused to identify Potter at the manor. Would she look at him the same? Would she find him a traitor?

He looked out towards the vast, dark grounds, the crisp air hitting his face, and he saw the Thestrals by the edge of the forest, flying off towards the horizon...