Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I am tired, cold, slightly frightened, and it's extremely late at night and I don't own Harry Potter.
Notes: Yes, I know June 25 went by about eight
hundred years ago. Lauren, it's coming,
I promise! By the way, readers,
Lauren's account is 'addicted to harry potter'.
Other
Notes: The toad comment came from a reader. I fell in love with the insult and resolved to incorporate it
somehow. Full credit for the phrase is
given to ZONKOFRED.
Even
More Notes: "Damsontongue" is up! Go read and review it or I'll hunt you down
and trample you. I know where you
live. I'm coming, Clarice.
It's
been forever! I'm sorry this wasn't
updated, but with the Great Fanfiction Scare over, and myself back from a long
trip and a bout of food poisoning, Part Twelve is finally here. Joy.
Part XII:
History Repeating
As the memory faded, I sneaked a look at my father's face. Surprisingly, he looked rather calm, in comparison to the unnatural red his face had been before. He stood slowly, holding onto my mother for support. He was not pacified, only stunned.
"Draco,"
he said to me, "you were…in love with the Mudblood?"
I
looked around, frantic. "No! No, I…it was just a…façade…experiment…I was
lying to her…she…was…"
The
head judge drummed his fingers on his lectern. "Spare us your lies, Mr. Malfoy. Lucius, please take your seat."
"No,"
my father said quietly. His voice rose
in both volume and confidence as he continued, "No, I will not take my
seat! My son has gone against
everything the Malfoy name stands for! My son has brought shame to my family! My son slept with a Mudblood!"
Here,
Harry stood up, facing my father directly with glittering emerald eyes. "What is wrong with that?" he demanded.
"What
is wrong with it?" My father's voice piqued shrilly. "She's not pure! She'll
be mucking up the bloodline! She's a
dirty…"
"Lucius
Malfoy, listen to yourself," Harry snapped. "Your son – your son, your very
own flesh and blood – is in love with a perfectly good woman! Look at her." He gestured wildly to
Hermione. "She's beautiful, smart,
nice. She's polite, committed only
minor crimes, she's forgiving, she helped in the downfall of evil. She's everything you could ask for in a
girl, in a daughter-in-law, if it comes to that! And your son loves her. That should be enough for you to love her too!"
My
father slammed a hand on the chair in front of him, screeching, "She's a filthy
Muggle-born -"
"I
don't give a damn about what her bloodlines are, Lucius!" Harry cried. "She's a woman, she's a person! She has feelings too, you, you…toad!"
"How
dare you!" my father yelled, raising his wand.
"Lucius,
please!" the head judge interrupted, but my father was furious, enraged beyond
belief. The judge continued, "Put the
wand down, Lucius. No magic is allowed
in this courtroom without permission! It is a felony!"
For
a moment, it looked as though Father might disobey, but he thought better of it
and threw the wand aside. It sparked
slightly as it hit a wall, but he paid no attention. He launched himself at Harry, catching the boy around his
shoulders and pinning him to the ground.
Harry
screamed, using all his weight to force himself and my father into a somersault,
switching the positions so that he was on top. My father punched him in the face, but this only angered Harry
more. The boy sat up on my father's
stomach, holding him down on the ground.
Unfortunately
for Harry, my father was an experienced fighter and very strong. He brought one foot up and pushed it against
Harry's chest, then the other; with this tactic he forced Harry to the ground.
"Justice,"
Hermione started.
"Let
them be," was his only answer.
Clearly
having the advantage now, Lucius kicked Harry in the stomach, then gave him a
nice punch on the arm. With all limbs
held motionless, Harry fell back on more disturbing methods. As my father socked his shoulder again,
Harry's teeth flashed out of nowhere and sank into my father's wrist.
"This
is crazy!" Hermione yelled.
Father
cursed very loudly, yanking his bleeding skin free of Harry's jaws. His fingers found Harry's throat, and Harry
coughed and choked loudly as my father increased pressure on his airways.
"Justice,
please," I begged. "Couldn't one of
them get seriously hurt?"
The
head justice replied, "If it comes to that, I will stop them. But let us see how this plays out."
"Justice,"
I began again, but his attention had returned to the fight.
Harry
was making some guttural moans and hacks, sounding much like early cavemen must
have sounded before the development of language. Frantic now, he managed to get his arms out from under Father's
elbows, grabbing the fingers that were choking him and clawing like there was
no tomorrow. He managed to get a secure
hold on my father's left hand, finally peeling it off, and then yanking himself
free of the right hand.
He
coughed until his airways were fully functional again, holding Father's hands
in his own to keep them from returning to his throat. When he had his voice back, he demanded, "What is it about
Muggle-borns that makes you so mad?"
My
father freed his hands from the boy's grasp, rolling off him and getting onto
his hands and knees on the floor. He
panted heavily, glaring daggers at Harry. His voice was thick with poison as he replied, "Do you really want to
know? The truth might shock you."
Harry
brought one leg up and kicked my father in the back, flattening him out of the
floor with a loud rush of air from his lungs. He lay motionless for just one moment to get his wind back, but that one
moment was enough for Harry to pin his arms and legs back and sit down on his
body to hold him perfectly still. The
boy sneered rudely, "What, is it like a pureblood thing? I've got some news for you. I may have been raised with my Muggle cousin
and his family, but I am a
pureblood. So do you want to tell me –
and the rest of the courtroom – or not?"
Father
struggled uselessly against the arms that hold him. He spat bitterly. "Why do
you care? You don't care about me, or
my past. You don't need to know why I
am the way that I am."
"Do
we?" said the judge, a slight hint of amusement bleeding into his voice.
Lucius'
recoiled slightly, but not enough. "You
want to know? Fine, I'll tell you why I
hate Mudbloods. One of them broke my
heart."
"Elaborate,"
snapped Harry.
"Oh,
you know her," said my father, sucking pleasure from every word. "You know her very well, Potter." He paused, his lips curling into a sadistic
smile. "Well, no, that's technically
incorrect, isn't it? She died just
after you were born, I believe. At
Voldemort's hand."
Harry's
eyes were clouded with confusion, a mixture of denial and disbelief.
"Yes,"
my father mused, "quite a tease, she was, really. I was hormonal. She was
my sweet, succulent fruit of Eden."
Was
it my imagination, or were those tears in his cold blue eyes?
Harry
shook his head, mouth agape, refusing to believe. "You can't possibly mean…"
"Oh,
I slept with your mother, Potter," my father drawled, so slowly and cruelly
that it seemed to physically pain Harry. Lucius licked his lips, drawing the joy from each low, enunciated
syllable. "We were seventeen. By the pond, late one night over Christmas
break. It was freezing, but we didn't
care. We didn't even know, we were so
lost in ourselves."
I
was just as shocked as everyone else in the courtroom, but no one was as
stunned as Harry. He was positively
floored. "My mother would never lay
with you," he spat.
"Oh,"
whispered my father, "wouldn't she? She
loved it, Potter. She loved me. I was on Cloud Nine with Lily Evans for a
year and a half. And then it
happened. Voldemort came. He rose. He was there, Potter. You
couldn't possibly comprehend."
His
voice was pained as he spoke, and a tear leaked from his eye. Harry was failing at trying to shut his
mouth. He was speechless.
My
father lamented in a tortured voice, "He took her, as bait. I was of prestigious blood, a great prize
for any grand villain. But I wasn't
thinking about that, I wasn't using my brain - I would have done anything to
get my Lily back. You know what I did,
Potter?"
Harry
could naught but stare.
"I
sold my soul to Voldemort in exchange for Lily. I held out my arm and received the Dark Mark. That's what I did to save your mother's
life. I will serve Voldemort eternally
so that your mother would live. And
then she left me alone, nursing the perpetual pain. She went to James and used him as a fucking crutch! I sat there in the cold Slytherin common
room with Severus and took orders from that asshole Voldemort for years,
holding on only for your mother. And
you know what he did?" Rage blended
with the pain in his tone. "He killed
her. He used me and that annoying
bludgeon of a human being, Peter Pettigrew, and he killed her! That night in Godric's Hollow, I screamed
and cried and froze under my layers of robes, weeping in the wind for hours,
Potter."
He
stopped, breathing hard. Harry released
him. Lucius wiped the single tear from
his cheek, glaring at each of us in turn. "I died that night. I became an
apathetic wreck of a man." He made a
disgusted noise. "That is why I hate
Mudbloods. They're ungrateful, horrid,
impure tools for sick-minded wizards who take advantage of them, and they crowd
and they crowd and they just keep crowding up the world."
Here
he paused. When he spoke again, his
voice was trembling. "And they're
beautiful. Why are they all so
beautiful? Why are they all so out of
reach?"
