Through the Dragon's Eyes
A story in four parts
ANTI-LAWYER HEX: I solemnly swear that I do not own the Harry Potter characters, that I am only borrowing them from J.K. Rowling for my own heinous experiments and that I fully intend to return them to her, more or less intact, when I have finished. Lawyerus explodi!
THREE
"I wasn't enamored of Potter," Malfoy said candidly, laying back on the bed and staring at the cracked and peeling ceiling, where several yellow discolored spots, evidence of water leakage, were visible. "Even before I knew who he was. My father, on the other hand--well, Harry became Lucius Malfoy's new obsession." He shook his head. "He forgot all about his own son. Not that I was ever a priority to begin with, mind."
"Did Harry know how you felt?" I inquired.
My companion chuckled humorlessly. "He knew. I went out of my way to show him how I felt. I was jealous and angry that a common, Mudblood-loving boy--forgive my bluntness--could draw my father's attention when I couldn't. I'm afraid I was rather petty when I was younger, even going so far as to start rumors about him in The Daily Prophet."
I nodded. "You mean the Rita Skeeter articles during the first new Triwizard Tournament."
He grunted. "Ironic, isn't it? I never imagined how that must have felt until it happened to me."
"She started all sorts of rumors about both of you," I agreed. "And, of course, the copycat journalists followed in her footsteps."
He smiled grimly. "Remember the one about how I killed my father, supposedly at Voldemort's command?"
The rickety chair in which I sat creaked as I leaned forward, interested. "Yes," I answered cautiously. Was he about to reveal the truth behind that rumor? I checked my digital voice recorder to make sure it was still functioning.
"It's not true," he said pointedly, evidently noticing my curiosity. "It's actually the other way around."
"You mean, Voldemort ordered your father to kill you?"
He nodded.
"How did that happen?"
"It's a long story," he told me. "Sure you have enough time remaining on that thing?"
"I'll take notes if I have to. With a pen," I added, drawing my wand from my inner coat pocket. Malfoy nodded once again as I conjured a notepad and a ballpoint pen, laying my wand and the recorder on the floor next to me so that I could write. "Go ahead."
"The first thing you need to understand is that a boy can only see his father as a hero for so long. As he grows up, he begins to perceive faults that previously went unnoticed. I started to see Lucius Malfoy in a different light when I turned sixteen."
Draco awoke to the sound of a sharp cry from downstairs. He sat up in his bed, heart pounding, listening hard. The voice had sounded like his father's, but Draco had never known Lucius Malfoy to voice pain. Besides, he thought darkly, his father was in Azkaban, no thanks to Dumbledore, accused of being a Death Eater. He pushed the thought aside, wondering if someone had broken in. The protective enchanments on the house and grounds were many and complex, and should have prevented such a thing, but a highly-skilled wizard might be still be able to slip past them. He held very still, not daring to breathe, but was unable to hear any other sounds in the dark manor house.
Finally, unable to stand the mounting tension any longer, he slipped out of bed and padded to the door, opening it slightly and peering out into the hall. The air was cold on his bare chest, but he ignored it, glancing toward his parents' bedroom. No light emanated from under their door, meaning his mother was asleep, but there was a faint light visible at the bottom of the marble stairs. Quietly, he retrieved his wand from the nightstand by his bed and crept carefully downstairs. Technically, he was not allowed to use the wand outside of school, but if someone had managed to get past the security spells, he wanted to be ready. And anyway, if Potter could be let off the previous summer on the grounds of self-defense, so could he.
As he reached the bottom of the marble staircase, he discovered the dim light was coming from the drawing room. Wand held high, he slipped along the wall toward the open doorway. He could hear someone moving around inside. He paused just outside the room, gathering his courage, before leaping suddenly into the room.
"Impedimentia!" he shouted, aiming his wand at the dark-clad figure crouching on the drawing room floor.
"Protego!" the figure croaked at nearly the same instant, brandishing a wand of its own, and Draco's spell rebounded, striking him full in the chest. He cried out as the jinx singed his bare skin and crumpled to the ground, his muscles no longer functional. The figure heaved itself from the floor and staggered over to him, pushing back its hood to reveal the face of his father.
"D-dad?" Draco gasped, squinting up in disbelief at his father. Lucius Malfoy's pale blonde hair, normally impeccable, was now matted and unkempt. His face was dirty and bruised on one side, there were hollows under his eyes, and blood trickled from one temple.
His father glared down at him, swaying for a moment on unsteady feet, before waving his wand again and muttering, "Finite incantatum."
Draco found himself able to move once more, but his chest still stung where the spell had struck. He sat up shakily, looking worriedly at his father, who had collapsed wearily into his leather armchair. "Are you all right?"
His father did not answer.
"How did you escape?" Draco asked, getting to his feet.
Lucius chuckled mirthlessly, not looking at his son but at the opposite wall, on which hung a painting of a solitary fortress perched on a dark rock, surrounded by the wind-lashed sea. "The dementors no longer guard Azkaban," he whispered softly, "and it will take more than a bunch of incompetent wizards to keep a Malfoy in chains. Dumbledore will rue the day he crossed me," he murmured, "and Potter, too."
Draco pointed at his father's bleeding temple. "You're hurt," he said.
His father touched his temple with one hand, drawing away blood. "Alastor Moody," he said softly, gazing at his blood-soaked fingers as if seeing them for the first time.
"Dad," Draco said earnestly, kneeling at his father's feet and looking him directly in the eye. "What happened?"
His father stared at him. "Fetch your mother," he said at length.
"What? Why? Why won't you tell me what's going on? The papers are saying you're a Death Eater, that you were caught inside the Department of Mysteries, that you're to be tried in connection with the death of Sirius Black...!" He trailed off, looking expectantly at his father, his insides churning, anger evident on his face.
"Your mother," Lucius Malfoy repeated.
"I have a right to know what's happening!" Draco flared, standing up.
His father's lined face became as hard as stone. "Bring...your mother..to me now!" he said, placing a dangerous emphasis on each word.
Draco clenched his jaw, staring furiously at his father for a moment, who returned his stare with a steely glint in his eyes. The two glared at each other for a moment before Draco huffed and turned on his heel and stalked away, jaw working furiously. Just who did his father think he was, anyway, cavorting with Death Eaters (this was not a surprise; Draco had suspected his father of being one of Voldemort's supporters) and possibly murdering a family member? For all his talk, Draco had never considered actually killing another human being, pureblooded wizard or not, and he was disturbed by his father's actions, and he was angry that he was so disturbed. Even when the Chamber of Secrets had been opened, the worst that had happened was the Petrification of students; it never occurred to him that anyone would die until the final message had been scrawled on the wall. But Potter had prevented that, hadn't he, and no one had been killed.
Except Cedric Diggory, but that was at the hands of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and everyone knew he was a cold-blooded killer of wizards and Muggles alike. To see his father in the same ominous light as Lord Voldemort was quite something else, particularly since Sirius had been a full-blooded wizard and his uncle, though Draco had never known him.
With a start, he realized he had reached the door to his parents' bedroom. "Mom?" he called softly, knocking on the door. "Mom, dad's home."
He heard his mother stir behind the door, and a moment later it swung open.
"What?" his mother asked him sleepily, clutching her robe tightly.
"Dad's downstairs," Draco said, pointing.
All traces of sleep suddenly gone, Mrs. Malfoy hurried down to the drawing room, Draco in tow. "Lucius!" she gasped upon seeing her husband sprawled in the armchair, and she rushed over to him. "Are you all right?"
"As much as can be expected," his father murmured, his eyes closed. "Send the boy away."
Draco froze where he was standing, struck cold by his father's words. Lucius Malfoy had never before referred to him as "the boy."
"Draco, go to your room," his mother said at once, cutting him off with a warning look as he opened his mouth to protest angrily. "Don't argue."
Draco clamped his mouth shut and left the room, fists clenched so hard they had turned white. He could turn his father in, he thought furiously as he stomped upstairs, call the Ministry of Magic and let them know he'd escaped. But even as the thought occurred to him, he knew he wouldn't do it, wouldn't risk disappointing his father so. Whatever he may have done, Lucius Malfoy was still his father, and he resolved to stick by him until the end, reasoning that his father was tired, having just made a daring escape from the inescapable prison. The thought did little to quell his frustration, however--he wanted to know, wanted to help his father. But how could he, when the man refused to talk to him?
Draco entered his room and closed the door quietly. The moonlight shone through the tall window on the opposite wall, reflecting from the mirror in the corner and casting an iridescent glow over everything. Acting on a sudden impulse, Draco approached the mirror, in which his reflection was fast asleep on his reflected bed.
"Wake up!" he hissed. It stirred fitfully but did not awake. He grasped the top of the mirror and shook it slightly, rattling the contents of his reflected room and causing his reflection to tumble out of bed.
"All right, all right," his reflection snapped, sitting up and rubbing its head painfully, looking every bit as unkempt as his real self. "I'm up. What do you want?"
"I want to talk to Blaise," he told himself.
"Again? Why don't you two just room together and let me get some sleep?"
"Just do it," Draco demanded, impatient.
His reflection yawned and scratched its chest absent-mindedly. Draco noticed with a start that his reflection was wearing a shirt. "Some of us have a modicum of decency," the mirror said dryly, following his gaze. "Who're you trying to impress, anyway?"
Draco reached for the top of the mirror again.
"Okay!" his reflection exclaimed, holding up a staying hand and eyeing his real self's outstretched arm with alarm. "He's probably asleep, though. Not that you care." The image in the mirror swirled for a moment, finally resolving itself into the view of a darkened bedroom far away. A boy with brown hair lay fast asleep on the bed in one corner of the room. His soft snores were audible through the glass.
"See?" the mirror said. "Normal people sleep at one in the morning."
"Stow it!" Draco hissed. "Blaise!" he whispered into the glass, his breath fogging it slightly, but the boy did not respond. "Blaise!" he said loudly, and then louder still, "Blaise!"
"Wha--?" The boy in the mirror rolled over and sat up, bleary-eyed. "Oh," he said, grimacing as he saw the source of the disturbance, "put a shirt on, won't you? I don't need that kind of a rude awakening."
"Don't you start, too," Draco said, glowering up at the mirror as it snickered.
"S-sorry," Blaise said, yawning and running a hand through his tousled hair. He distentangled his tall, thin form from the bedspread and came up to the mirror so that he appeared to be standing directly in front of Draco, looking at him through a round wooden window. "What's going on?"
"You can't tell anyone," Draco said, "but my father's come home."
Blaise's brown eyes widened in surprise. "Your father? But isn't he in Azkaban?"
"He was," Draco said grimly.
"Are you going to turn him in?"
"No."
"You want me to turn him in?"
"No!"
"Just checking. I know how you feel about him sometimes."
Draco shook his head. "That doesn't matter. I need your help."
"To do what?" Blaise asked cautiously.
"Your father's in charge of registered Portkeys," Draco pointed out.
"No," Blaise said, shaking his head vigorously as he realized what Draco was suggesting, "don't even think about it! It won't work, anyway; how am I supposed to get my hands on a Portkey?"
"Not a Portkey," Draco corrected him, "just a list of the authorized ones and their locations and activation times."
Blaise considered it, a worried frown creasing his forehead. "I don't know," he said dubiously. "Can't your dad just Apparate wherever he wants to go?"
"No. I don't think he's strong enough right now. Please," Draco implored his friend, astonished at how low he had sunk.
"Did the word 'please' just escape your mouth?" the other boy asked, incredulous. "Since when does a Malfoy ask nicely for anything? All right," he added hastily, seeing Draco's dark look, "I'll do what I can." He shook his head again. "I must be crazy. You're going to owe me for this," he added, a sudden, mischievous grin spreading across his face.
"I'm sure I can afford it," Draco said confidently.
"Mmmf," Blaise replied noncomittally, yawning again and casting a final glance at Draco before turning and shuffling back to bed. "I'll send you an owl sometime tomorrow. Now go to sleep like a normal person."
The image in the mirror wavered again and the vision of the faraway bedroom vanished, replaced by the reflection of his own. He was staring at himself with a sardonic expression on his face; or rather, his reflection was.
"Something to add?" he asked himself.
"No," his reflection said.
"Good," Draco replied, turning his back on the mirror and climbing into bed.
"Oh, please, Blaise, help me! I'll do anything!"
Draco reached over to the nightstand and fumbled around until he found a book to chuck at the mirror. It landed with a satisfying thunk against the frame and he heard his reflection give an alarmed shout as it was thrown to the reflected floor.
All throughout the next day, Draco waited anxiously for the owl from Blaise to arrive. His greatest fear was that Ministry wizards would charge through the manor gate at any moment, wands blazing, and drag his father away, but the day wore on with no sign that the Ministry even knew his father was missing. Lucius Malfoy still refused to speak to him, however, so Draco spent the day wandering the grounds aimlessly while dark clouds gathered overhead, bringing with them the threat of rain before nightfall. He mentally reviewed his plan, checking for flaws, but he didn't know how Portkeys worked well enough to know whether the Ministry would be able to track his father once he'd used one. So much of the plan depended on that list--where was that bloody owl anyway?
And then he saw it, a faint speck at first against the ominous clouds, but growing larger every moment. Draco held out his hand and the owl swooped low over the grounds, coming to land on his outstretched arm with a flurry of wings. Draco winced as its talons cut into his arm, but he was in too much of a hurry to care. He tore the envelope from the owl's beak, and it hooted questioningly at him.
"You want a place to weather the storm?" Draco asked as the first fat raindrops began to fall. The owl hooted again. Draco was torn between the malevolent desire to send the owl off into the tempest anyway and another feeling, one he could not readily identify. Finally, he nodded and pointed at the glass windows high on the wall. "That's the dining hall," he told the owl. "The windows will open to let you in. I'll--I'll bring you some food later." The owl took off, and Draco rubbed his arm unconsciously as it soared through the window that had opened for it.
Draco barely made it inside before the clouds opened up like a spigot, drenching the house and the grounds with a sudden downpour. As it was, he was still soaking, and he shivered slightly in the entryway, wiping the water from his face and fumbling with numb fingers at the envelope. At last, he managed to tear it open, and two pieces of parchment fell out. Draco stooped to retrieve them, water dripping from his damp hair.
The first sheet contained a hastily-scrawled note which read:
Drake,
I managed to nip this list from my father's study. It's a few days old, but it shows some of today's planned Portkeys which should still be operational. Your best bet is probably the one in Ravenglass, which is only a couple of miles from your house.
Good luck! I don't pretend to agree with what you're doing, but I understand.
Your friend,
Blaise Zambini
The second sheet of parchment contained a neatly-typed listing of Portkeys in the Lake District, noting their locations, destinations, and activation times. Most of these had already expired, but Blaise had circled the one for Ravenglass, which showed an activation time of five-fifteen and listed "Reykjavik, Iceland" as its destination, with the note, "Ravenglass Alpine Racing Team Day Spa Trip" to one side. Draco exulted silently; Iceland was surely far enough away to keep his father from being found. He ran from the entrance hall, through the drawing room, and into his father's study.
His parents, who had been having a whispered conversation, looked up in alarm as their sodden son burst through the doorway. The elder Malfoy looked better under his wife's ministrations, although the nasty bruises on his face were still visible; he was sitting and holding a steaming cup of tea while his mother hovered over one shoulder.
"What is it?" she asked her excited son, fear evident in her eyes. "Has the Ministry come?" It was apparent that she had shared Draco's anxiety about her husband's fate.
Draco shook his head. "No," he said, grinning and waving the list of Portkeys before them. "I've got a way out."
Mr. Malfoy set his cup down on the small table beside him. "What are you suggesting?" he asked, his voice strangely cold.
"I've found a way for you to disappear," Draco said, faltering at his father's stony expression. "A-a way to escape, b-before the Ministry finds you here."
Mr. Malfoy drew himself up to his full height so that he was eye-to-eye with his son. "I hope you do not think I am capable of flight?"
Draco blinked. His father obviously didn't understand, he had missed something. "You've got to get away," he tried again. "What use is it escaping Azkaban if you're only going to let them find you again?" He pointed to the circled item on the Portkey list. "There's a Portkey," he began, but his father cut him off with an angry gesture.
"No," Mr. Malfoy snapped, his eyes flashing, "I will not run." He pulled the parchment from Draco's hand and tore it in two. "Let them come. If the fools think they can withstand me, they will soon discover their error."
"Don't be stupid!" Draco exploded, all of his exultation burned away by the wave of frustration at his father's stubborness, at his ungratefulness, at the fact that he never, ever listened to his own son. "Even you can't take them all on!"
"You would make me out to be a sniveling coward," his father hissed, stepping so close to Draco that he could feel the man's breath on his face. "I am not so faint of heart, son, but I begin to wonder about you; if you are worthy of the Malfoy name."
Stung by his father's insinuation, Draco took a step backward, his vision blurred by sudden tears. "Fine!" he shouted savagely. "I hope you are captured again, Father, so that the world can finally be rid of you!" He turned and ran from the room before his father could see his tears and know how close his words had cut.