Chapter 10: Amor Paternus

            The first person Draco saw when he apparated into Malfoy Manor was his mother, Narcissa Malfoy, having breakfast in the morning room.

            "Draco!" she exclaimed joyfully, as he ran to embrace her.

"Merry Christmas, mother" he said to her, pulling back from her after a quick hug.

            "Merry Christmas, my son." She said, her eyes were full of love as she looked over her only son. "Goodness, how you have grown!"

            "You say the same thing every year, mother." he said.

            "Yes, but you grow taller and bigger every year. Why Draco, I do believe you have become a fine young man! I wonder how the girls at Hogwarts resist you."

            Draco blushed. "Mother, this is so embarrassing."

            Narcissa looked at the door nervously. She pulled out a small brown packet tied with string from under the folds of her dressing gown.

            "Your Christmas present, Draco. Quickly, take it before your father comes."

            She kissed her son quickly as he nodded and slipped the packet into his pocket. For years, his mother had been slipping him Christmas presents without his father's knowledge. Lucius never celebrated Christmas at Malfoy Manor. He thought it was silly frivolity and had forbade anyone commemorating the season. Draco had never seen a Christmas tree in the house, or a wrapped present, or a Christmas pudding.

            Narcissa showed Draco to the couch and bade him sit down. She began to speak very rapidly and quietly. "It was my mother's, your grandmother's. Your eighteenth birthday is in January so I thought I could make it a two-in-one present. It has been in our family for generations. I never had a daughter so now it goes to you."

            "What is it mother?" asked Draco, as he heard his father's footsteps in the hall outside.

            "I've written it down."

            The door creaked open. "Well, well…if it isn't the young Mr Malfoy."

            Draco shot to his feet. "Good morning, father."

            Lucius Malfoy shook the snow off his robes, he had been walking in the snow early in the morning and some of it still clung damply to him. Narcissa Malfoy had gone quiet, her eyes were dull again and she sat quietly at the morning table eating her breakfast.

            "Good morning, Narcissa."

            "Good morning, Lucius."

            His parents greeted each other as his father sat down to breakfast. "Well, don't just stand there boy, come and eat something. I know you haven't had breakfast yet."

            Draco slid into his place at the morning table and took a pice of toast. He began to butter it carefully. Breakfast continued in silence for a while. Draco knew his father had something to say to him today, it was not just a friendly visit. He had little appetite as he waited in trepidation at what his father might say- might do- to him today.

            "School all right?"

            "Yes father."

            "How are your grades?"

            "I'm second in the whole form father."

            "I assume that obnoxious mudblood girl is first as usual?"

            Draco stiffened slightly. "Yes."

            "It's been a long time since a Malfoy was beaten at Hogwarts by a mudblood you know. You might as well be beaten by a muggle. What's wrong with you boy? There's certainly nothing wrong with your breeding…I married your mother for her excellent Pureblood heritage after all…" Narcissa's knuckles turned white as she clenched her spoon tighter. "…so the problem must lie with… you. Can you tell me Draco, why you are such a pathetic excuse for a wizard? Why you take no pride in your work? Why your brain seems full of bubotuber pus?"

            "No father. I can't."

            "Well then, seeing as you have let slip all your other chances, maybe you can at least try to beat that little slut of a mudblood in your final term?"

            Draco felt himself go white but years of torment had given him great self-control. "Yes, father I will try."

            "About time" said Lucius as he finished off his breakfast. Narcissa kept her eyes down during the whole meal. Lucius wiped his mouth and stood up from the table. "Narcissa, don't get me any more meals as I won't be home. I will be meeting with Ministry Officials later today. They find my help invaluable nowadays." He smirked. Narcissa nodded. To Draco he turned and said, "Follow me."

            Draco met his mother's eyes across the table as he stood. There was no expression in Narcissa's blue eyes but Draco thought he saw her jaw clench. He followed his father out of the room.

            "You have been a great disappointment to me over the years, Draco." Said his father as he led his only son down to the damp basement of Malfoy Manor.

Once, Malfoy manor had been beautiful, a place of wonder and grandness, but since Draco's grandfather- Ladon Malfoy- had begun his work in the Dark Arts, the manor had grown steadily uglier and more forbidding till Draco himself hardly dared enter certain parts of the huge house.

            Lucius unlocked the door that led to the cellars and father and son entered it. Draco always felt light-headed with fear when he entered this place. When he was younger, this was his father's favourite place to thrash his son- because nobody could hear the screams outside the thick stone walls. When Draco was older, he was forced to help his father in the studies of the Dark Arts in the huge underground laboratory. Lucius' experiments were always terrifying… and often involved live subjects.

            "Soon, on January the 20th, you will be 18.That will give me, us, exactly three more years before your initiation into our Lord's glorious servitude."

            You wish thought Draco.

            "Now, you have always known that you are a very special boy. The only reason you were conceived and born was to serve my Lord in his moment of greatest need as has been foretold by my Lord himself. Your birth has nothing to do with love Draco. Your mother was useful in her own time for my purposes, and that was all. Soon, you will serve your purpose too…in fact, if my Lord did not constantly remind me of the purpose you will serve on your 21st birthday, I must admit Draco, that I would have killed you long ago…your character does not agree with me, nor your ideas."

            Well I wonder why thought Draco you crazy bloodthirsty bastard.

            "Don't give me that insolent boy. You've known that long enough. You've known what would have made me happy, and yet you fight me every day, every moment in stead of giving me what I want. Well, I have long given up on reasoning with you Draco. I have, as you have noticed, taken recently to simple brute force. I find it far more …persuasive."

            Draco gave a bitter laugh. "That is what you think father. Will you get to the point, if you want to have another persuasion session with me today, I would ask you to just get on with it. I don't have all day."

            "Still stubborn as ever, I see. Well, fortunately for you that is not my intention today. I am not so stupid as to see that if I beat you the number of times I actually wanted to, Hogwarts would start getting suspicious. No,no…my intention today is simply to give you an early birthday present."

            Draco's eyes narrowed. His father had never given him a birthday or Christmas present. This sounded like some new ploy.

            "My gift to you today will be one of information. My Lord has told me that it is time you started learning of your purpose in his service since you will soon be 18 and a man. We wouldn't like you getting funny ideas about aligning yourself with that loon Dumbledore or anything. You will find it is to no avail anyway. Your life was foretold a long time ago by the alignment of the stars the moment you were born."

            That is not true. That is NOT TRUE. Draco screamed to himself inside. He tried to focus on thoughts of Hermione to calm himself down. Her golden eyes and her fervent kisses last night. Hermione, help me be strong.

            "It really is pathetic how you fight it, you know. I can see you struggling with it now, Draco. Let me tell you for the hundredth time…it is your DESTINY."

Lucius walked swiftly to his laboratory and motioned to Draco to follow him to a small locked cabinet at the back of the room. Lucius took out his wand and muttered a password and the cabinet doors swung open to reveal a small crystal bottle with a reddish brown rock lying within it. Lucius took it out with great reverence and lifted it into the candlelight.

            "Do you know what this is, Draco?"

            "No."

            "You wouldn't, would you- you fool? Well, you will be pleased to hear that after all these years, my experiments have yielded me the ultimate fruit of my labour. My Lord's wishes will soon be fulfilled…" there was a gleam of triumph in Lucius' eyes.

With a shock, Draco realized what the substance was. Recently, his father's experiments had been directed to creating a second Philosopher's Stone- after Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel had destroyed the only one in existence six years ago after learning that Voldemort wanted it to rise to etermal life. This wasn't a new stone yet…hardly…this was the beginnings of it…this was…

            "Cinnabar, father?" whispered Draco.

            Lucius' smirked. "Not just Cinnabar, my son. This is pure Cinnabar…let's see if that fool Snape has taught you anything at all of value during the last six years. Tell me the properties of Cinnabar."

            "Cinnabar- or Dragon's Blood- is the most poisonous substance on earth and can never be handled with the bare hands. It is created from distilling the heart's blood of dragons which have slain men. It is used to create Death Potions for which there is no antidote."

            "Very good, Draco. I see that Snape is not a total loss after all. Do you know what else Cinnabar is used for besides Death Potions?"

            "Wh-When mixed with human blood and water, it starts a process of transformation…it begins to transform into the Stone of Eternal Life, the Philosopher's Stone..." Draco could hardly get the words out…how had his father managed to get his hands on pure cinnabar? The substance had been banned in the wizarding world for centuries.

            "…which will give my Lord what he so desires- a proper form, a proper life…forever."

            "But …the… no one, I mean, aside from Flamel, has ever successfully combined the two substances before, father. It doesn't always work, the process is very unstable…many in the past have tried but they've never managed to! You'll never be able to do it."

            Lucius smiled at his son. Draco did seem up to date on his studies at Hogwarts, pity that mudblood girl could beat him at every subject. But Draco had his uses, or, he would soon. A very important purpose that Lucius had been working for his whole life.

            "Well, you see, that's where you come in…son."