The Father, the Son and the Boy Who Lived
He leaned forward on the uncomfortable vinyl chair, the very creak of plastic on foam setting his already jagged nerves on edge. His elbows resting on his knees, his eyes averted clearly to the floor avoiding the accusatory stare of his mother, Narcissa.
It was ten years to the day that he had graduated from Hogwarts, ten years of trying to blaze his own path and finding himself over and over again slumping away into the shadow his father cast over him. Ten years of playing the ungrateful lap dog. Ten years of wanting something more, but unaware of how to make that something more happen.
Here he was sitting in the waiting room of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies, unable to cry, unable to yell, unable to do anything but feel empty. His father had been taken in the day before having suffered a curse from the end of Harry Potter's wand. Oh, how great Potter had become.
His survival over the Dark Lord had been a blow to the Death Eaters. His life had been glorious, nothing but fantastical since then. He had one of the top jobs at the ministry, a beautiful wife and a child nearly five years old. What did Draco have to show for it?
Absolutely nothing.
He had a wand that couldn't cast the kind of magic Potter could do without a wand. Draco had only a sour temperament, a gleaming helmet of blond hair and anger bubbling below the surface that needed to be let out.
He wanted to be thankful that he might finally be able to escape his father's shadow. He did not however, want to be thankful that this freedom would place him in the debt of Mr. Potter. He wanted to hate Potter fiercely and openly, as he had in the old days.
Yet here it was that Mr. Potter was sitting next to him in the waiting room, his precious scarred head in his shaking hands. Draco had heard him muttering a litany of prayers earlier, hoping he hadn't actually killed Lucius, even though it was in the line of duty and he had been right to take him down the way he had.
Twenty-seven years old and praying to a god who obviously didn't listen.
Draco shook his head at the divine comedy set before him. Here the one thing he wanted more than anything in the world delivered by the hands of the one he hated most, next to his father. He looked sideways at the young man, his jaw taut.
Harry must have felt Draco's eyes on him, for he turned to face the man who had been his rival at Hogwarts, his most hated schoolmate. He blinked those placid green eyes, locked for a moment with the cold gray of Draco's disbelieving stare. What passed between them in that moment would haunt Draco for years after.
Harry Potter had given him strength and courage and the ability to face what lay ahead for both of them. His dearest enemy had in that moment become his dearest friend. The next moment he was an enemy once more, Draco free to hate him, but that hate was conflicted now. That hate was diluted with a warmth of compassion he could not comprehend.
His desire to destroy, to tear down, to break apart, it had not been taken away. Yet the foundations of that destructive nature were slowly being lapped at by the tides of time and like the ocean working on the legs of a dock those foundations would one day crumble into the sea of Draco's heart. He clenched his fists, turning his eyes away from Harry.
It was the first time that he had thought about Potter as Harry. It was the first time that he saw the man for more than just a legend, for more than just a boyhood rival. The tears that would not come before were splashing down his face in hot, stinging tracks. He wiped at them, determined to wipe away all of this pent up emotion.
A healer arrived and asked for Draco to follow her; his father had been asking for him and would not rest until he saw his son. Draco got up, not bothering to look at his mother or Potter. He stared at the back of the healer's legs, swishing under her crisp white robes.
The interior of his father's room was the clinical white he couldn't stand with beige drapes and sterilized silver furniture. He hesitated before stepping within, looking at his father in disbelief.
Lucius was bandaged and almost frail looking, his pointed features appearing out of place in the dim light. His thick blond hair lay in waves all about his pillow, as if he'd been swishing his head from side to side in agony. Draco approached slowly and stayed a few feet away from his father's bed.
"Draco come here." His father said.
He could not refuse even in his father's weakened state. That tone of voice meant business. He struggled within his head for a few moments and then stepped forward. If these were the last moments of his father's life he should at least appear respectful. He rested his hands on the silver railing of the bed and looked just left of his father's face.
"I want to tell you son." Lucius said with much difficulty. "I have not been proud of you."
Draco swallowed hard. His face was stony and ashen. His jaw clenched and formed a hard line. He was, unconsciously so, the picture of his father at twenty-seven years old.
"I fear that as a parent I failed you." Lucius continued. "I did not raise you to be the man I tried to be. I did not raise you to be a Malfoy."
A lump had found it's way into Draco's throat.
"I wanted you to be better than the common rabble at Hogwarts. I do not see that I have done so. I do not see that you are truly the man I wanted you to become."
Draco was finding it difficult to swallow. His eyes were swelling with a salty deluge that threatened to overflow again. His teeth were becoming painful, clenched fiercely to keep back the words he wanted to scream, to throw at his hateful father.
"I am sorry that I could not raise you to be the son I could be proud of."
Draco's knuckles were white, clutching the bed-rail. He could take it no longer. He turned from his father without a word. He was almost at the door when his father's voice found its strength again.
"It's about time son."
Draco kept one fist balled at his side while the other reached for the handle of the door. He did not look back. He did not hear his father's final words. He was in the hall and walking past the medi-wizards. He was returning to his mother's side knowing that his father was dying in that room. He left knowing that his father would not live through the night and knowing that he would never have to look at him again.
He realized that in that moment he had become indebted to Harry Potter. That moment of realization brought with it a begrudging admission that Harry had become his better. He had done the one thing that Draco could not. He had killed Lucius Malfoy. He had removed Draco's father from his life.