A/N I would like to thank Ashleigh for being faithful with her reviews. It's nice to have feedback. And all the others who have read and reviewed this story. Thanks for the input. Keep it up and tell your friends.
A Malfoy
(Draco)
During the years that my father spent in Azkaban I visited him only once. For all my pretense of forgetting him, disowning him and moving on, I knew that I could not do either until he had explained himself. I needed to hear from his mouth the reason he had allowed the attack on my family. So I went.
The immense hunger of the dementors was oppressive and harsh. They licked the edges of my mind with dark thoughts that I worked hard to banish, all save one, the dead grey eyes of my wife. They were the very memory that brought me to that dark dungeon, I would need them to face my father, I needed to remember my anger.
Somehow, he still resembled himself. His long pale hair was knotted and dirty, every single well manicured nail was broken but his eyes were still as cold and devoid of emotion as ever. They stared at me with unbearable scrutiny, I did not flinch.
"Son." He said simply.
I noticed a hollow sound to his voice.
"You look well." I lied with a smirk.
"This place." He did not go further, but I knew.
"I came to ask you a question." I said.
One hand curled surreptitiously around the steel bars that separated us. His face drew closer to mine and I took a step back as the shadows lifted from his features. Had he not been my father I would have not recognized the man standing before me, flesh smeared with filth, long red scratches covered his arms, barely human.
"What might that be?" He queried with his usual drawl.
I watched fascinated as his other hand slowly, of it's own accord, reached and touched the side of his head. Jagged nails raked across his face and down to his neck, but he took no notice.
"Why?" Slowly I conjured up the image of Pansy. Her brown hair spread across the floor, one hand reaching for her wand, the other twisted beneath her, and those cold staring eyes.
"Why? Why? Why? Why indeed?" He said slowly his head twitched ever so slightly.
"Why did you allow my home to be raided?" I specified.
"Why? Why does the world turn? Why does the grass grow? It doesn't in here. Nothing changes here."
"Why did you allow my wife to die?" My anger was growing and I could feel the dementors draw slightly closer.
Suddenly he seemed to understand. His eyes lit up and he smiled a cruel smile.
"There are things worth dying for."
"Worth sacrificing your only son's family? My child nearly died that night." I growled low, rage replacing anger.
"I have no words for that, nothing to say. They steal my words here." He muttered.
"Don't you even care?!" I cried feeling tears prick my eyes.
"I raised you to understand the intricacies of darkness. It is not my fault you betrayed them. It is not my fault you were weak." Those were the last words I ever heard my father speak.
Without another word I turned and walked away.
My mother was left alone on the estate, she entreated me to come and live with her, but I refused. Malfoy Manor was not a place I wanted to spend much time, there were memories there that I found best left buried. So I remained in my own home with my son. I found that without my father I was quickly losing money, his monthly gift to my bank vault had allowed Pansy and I to live fairly well and without it I was less that rich. It did not take long before mother heard of this and summoned me to see her.
I stood very still in front of her waiting for her appraisal of my current state. Her narrow eyes scanned every inch of my being, As she finished one bony hand lifted a lace handkerchief to her nose and she coughed delicately.
"I will continue to give you your allowance on two conditions." She patted her robes straight and seemed to be waiting for a response.
"Yes mother?" I replied stiffly.
"The first being that do not attempt to find an alternative means of income." Again she waited.
With this condition she meant to trap me and succeeded very well. I had meant to look for a job, not that I had many marketable skills, unless being the only son of a former Death Eater meant anything.
"Very well."
"The second, I wish Bane to spend at least two months of the year here with me. I intend to see that he is brought up in right kind of atmosphere." A small smirk came to her lips.
She had taken every freedom I had now. I was her creature and she could control me as she pleased.
Soon after that I began to hear the voice. A whisper in my head, a tickle in my ear. There were no words to it, no sense to the sounds, but late at night as I lay in my bed I could hear it moving. Not loudly or quickly, but tiny sounds as it nested in my brain. Just a voice, nothing more. I pretended it did not exist.
Contrary to popular belief a dementors kiss is not deadly. The victim lives on, in what muggles refer to as a coma. A vegetable like state that can never be reversed. When a prisoner is given this punishment usually they are left in their cell to die, or are buried alive to quicken the process. However sometimes, very rarely, the family is given the option of keeping the shell.
My father was a smart man and had long ago thought he might be captured. He had arranged for his body to be delivered to his remaining relatives upon his demise or the loss of his soul. When I received an owl from the Ministry of Magic I prayed he had died, if he had Bane and I inherited half his fortune. My disappointment was immediate. Mother was deemed incapable of caring for his incapacitated husk and had given me the honor of doing so, but only after altering our agreement. Should my father die unexpectedly in my care I inherited nothing.
I arranged a room off my study for him to reside in. There were no decorations, no pictures, no shelves, merely a bed in the center and a small window to allow light in. He deserved no more. Three Healers from St. Mungo's were sent to bring the body and settle him in. They seemed fearful of entering the house, but I did nothing to reassure them. One of them, a shy freckled female, showed me how to feed him and bathe him. She instructed me on how to change the bedding without help and warned me not to be surprised if he did odd things.
"Sometimes they move, blink, cough or snore. He isn't waking up, he's just having a memory." She said quietly while the other two laid him gently in the bed.
I heard one of them mutter something about Death Eaters and whirled around.
"I AM NOT A DEATH EATER!" I shouted angrily.
"No no, of course you aren't." He said with a smirk that rivaled my own.
His companion hushed him and they left before another word was said. I was left alone with my father's soulless body.
Years passed and I continued to care for him. In some ways I grew closer to him then than I ever had growing up. He was not able to tell me where I had failed him or how I could do better for myself. He never looked at me menacingly or attempted to intimidate me. I began to talk to him sometimes. Tell him my problems and then smile at the silence that followed. I read him books that I found interesting, I played him music that I liked, I showed him all the things that I enjoyed and found satisfaction in the fact that were he able to hear me, he'd have hated it all.
Bane grew older as well. The months at his grandmothers had changed him from my sweet little son, to a creature resembling myself at his age. She taught him to hate those who had less than him, fed him lies about muggle-borns and eventually created in him the same deep seeded hatred of all other living creatures that I had been given.
"Daddy, why do we shop at the same stores as the mud bloods?" He asked me one day while we were in Diagon Alley.
I looked down at him with curiosity.
"Where did you hear that word?" I asked.
"Grandmother." He replied looking in a store window.
"I thought as much. Don't use that word in public any more."
"Grandmother said you would be angry, she said you wouldn't like that she had told me those things." He smirked a little.
"I would never belittle any of your grandmother's teachings, but I will insist that you follow the rules I set for you when you are with me." I made my tone low knowing he would not question it.
"Yes Daddy." He replied.
I love my son very much, but I found it difficult to deal with the person he was turning into. I could do little to reverse it as that would cut off our income and I would inherit nothing, Bane deserved a little of his family fortune if nothing else.
Still the voice whispered. Muttered about in my head, mulled over my problems. The words were not words merely white noise, but I could hear it. I knew it was there. It was not until I entered Longbottom's Frondescent Foliage that I truly heard it speak.
Had it been Neville alone I might have been able to cope with the meeting, but she was there. Hermione Granger, though I had long since found that she had married the Weasley, stood there behind the counter muttering something about order forms. She saw me and I knew she went back in time. I knew she saw me cowering in the tall grass weeping over my infant son. I told them what I needed and waited as they got it for me. Her eyes rarely left my son.
He was far from the tiny baby she had rescued. He was a Malfoy and I knew that upset her. I stayed his comments and reprimanded him for speaking. She did not deserve his foul mouth, she needed to think that he was a good boy. A child she could be proud of saving.
When we left carrying our purchases I heard them talking before the door closed. Heard Neville comment on my behavior. It was nothing. He didn't know me and he didn't know about her having saved my life.
"Don't worry. The plan is set. Watch them. Watch them." The voice whispered softly in my ear.
A Malfoy
(Draco)
During the years that my father spent in Azkaban I visited him only once. For all my pretense of forgetting him, disowning him and moving on, I knew that I could not do either until he had explained himself. I needed to hear from his mouth the reason he had allowed the attack on my family. So I went.
The immense hunger of the dementors was oppressive and harsh. They licked the edges of my mind with dark thoughts that I worked hard to banish, all save one, the dead grey eyes of my wife. They were the very memory that brought me to that dark dungeon, I would need them to face my father, I needed to remember my anger.
Somehow, he still resembled himself. His long pale hair was knotted and dirty, every single well manicured nail was broken but his eyes were still as cold and devoid of emotion as ever. They stared at me with unbearable scrutiny, I did not flinch.
"Son." He said simply.
I noticed a hollow sound to his voice.
"You look well." I lied with a smirk.
"This place." He did not go further, but I knew.
"I came to ask you a question." I said.
One hand curled surreptitiously around the steel bars that separated us. His face drew closer to mine and I took a step back as the shadows lifted from his features. Had he not been my father I would have not recognized the man standing before me, flesh smeared with filth, long red scratches covered his arms, barely human.
"What might that be?" He queried with his usual drawl.
I watched fascinated as his other hand slowly, of it's own accord, reached and touched the side of his head. Jagged nails raked across his face and down to his neck, but he took no notice.
"Why?" Slowly I conjured up the image of Pansy. Her brown hair spread across the floor, one hand reaching for her wand, the other twisted beneath her, and those cold staring eyes.
"Why? Why? Why? Why indeed?" He said slowly his head twitched ever so slightly.
"Why did you allow my home to be raided?" I specified.
"Why? Why does the world turn? Why does the grass grow? It doesn't in here. Nothing changes here."
"Why did you allow my wife to die?" My anger was growing and I could feel the dementors draw slightly closer.
Suddenly he seemed to understand. His eyes lit up and he smiled a cruel smile.
"There are things worth dying for."
"Worth sacrificing your only son's family? My child nearly died that night." I growled low, rage replacing anger.
"I have no words for that, nothing to say. They steal my words here." He muttered.
"Don't you even care?!" I cried feeling tears prick my eyes.
"I raised you to understand the intricacies of darkness. It is not my fault you betrayed them. It is not my fault you were weak." Those were the last words I ever heard my father speak.
Without another word I turned and walked away.
My mother was left alone on the estate, she entreated me to come and live with her, but I refused. Malfoy Manor was not a place I wanted to spend much time, there were memories there that I found best left buried. So I remained in my own home with my son. I found that without my father I was quickly losing money, his monthly gift to my bank vault had allowed Pansy and I to live fairly well and without it I was less that rich. It did not take long before mother heard of this and summoned me to see her.
I stood very still in front of her waiting for her appraisal of my current state. Her narrow eyes scanned every inch of my being, As she finished one bony hand lifted a lace handkerchief to her nose and she coughed delicately.
"I will continue to give you your allowance on two conditions." She patted her robes straight and seemed to be waiting for a response.
"Yes mother?" I replied stiffly.
"The first being that do not attempt to find an alternative means of income." Again she waited.
With this condition she meant to trap me and succeeded very well. I had meant to look for a job, not that I had many marketable skills, unless being the only son of a former Death Eater meant anything.
"Very well."
"The second, I wish Bane to spend at least two months of the year here with me. I intend to see that he is brought up in right kind of atmosphere." A small smirk came to her lips.
She had taken every freedom I had now. I was her creature and she could control me as she pleased.
Soon after that I began to hear the voice. A whisper in my head, a tickle in my ear. There were no words to it, no sense to the sounds, but late at night as I lay in my bed I could hear it moving. Not loudly or quickly, but tiny sounds as it nested in my brain. Just a voice, nothing more. I pretended it did not exist.
Contrary to popular belief a dementors kiss is not deadly. The victim lives on, in what muggles refer to as a coma. A vegetable like state that can never be reversed. When a prisoner is given this punishment usually they are left in their cell to die, or are buried alive to quicken the process. However sometimes, very rarely, the family is given the option of keeping the shell.
My father was a smart man and had long ago thought he might be captured. He had arranged for his body to be delivered to his remaining relatives upon his demise or the loss of his soul. When I received an owl from the Ministry of Magic I prayed he had died, if he had Bane and I inherited half his fortune. My disappointment was immediate. Mother was deemed incapable of caring for his incapacitated husk and had given me the honor of doing so, but only after altering our agreement. Should my father die unexpectedly in my care I inherited nothing.
I arranged a room off my study for him to reside in. There were no decorations, no pictures, no shelves, merely a bed in the center and a small window to allow light in. He deserved no more. Three Healers from St. Mungo's were sent to bring the body and settle him in. They seemed fearful of entering the house, but I did nothing to reassure them. One of them, a shy freckled female, showed me how to feed him and bathe him. She instructed me on how to change the bedding without help and warned me not to be surprised if he did odd things.
"Sometimes they move, blink, cough or snore. He isn't waking up, he's just having a memory." She said quietly while the other two laid him gently in the bed.
I heard one of them mutter something about Death Eaters and whirled around.
"I AM NOT A DEATH EATER!" I shouted angrily.
"No no, of course you aren't." He said with a smirk that rivaled my own.
His companion hushed him and they left before another word was said. I was left alone with my father's soulless body.
Years passed and I continued to care for him. In some ways I grew closer to him then than I ever had growing up. He was not able to tell me where I had failed him or how I could do better for myself. He never looked at me menacingly or attempted to intimidate me. I began to talk to him sometimes. Tell him my problems and then smile at the silence that followed. I read him books that I found interesting, I played him music that I liked, I showed him all the things that I enjoyed and found satisfaction in the fact that were he able to hear me, he'd have hated it all.
Bane grew older as well. The months at his grandmothers had changed him from my sweet little son, to a creature resembling myself at his age. She taught him to hate those who had less than him, fed him lies about muggle-borns and eventually created in him the same deep seeded hatred of all other living creatures that I had been given.
"Daddy, why do we shop at the same stores as the mud bloods?" He asked me one day while we were in Diagon Alley.
I looked down at him with curiosity.
"Where did you hear that word?" I asked.
"Grandmother." He replied looking in a store window.
"I thought as much. Don't use that word in public any more."
"Grandmother said you would be angry, she said you wouldn't like that she had told me those things." He smirked a little.
"I would never belittle any of your grandmother's teachings, but I will insist that you follow the rules I set for you when you are with me." I made my tone low knowing he would not question it.
"Yes Daddy." He replied.
I love my son very much, but I found it difficult to deal with the person he was turning into. I could do little to reverse it as that would cut off our income and I would inherit nothing, Bane deserved a little of his family fortune if nothing else.
Still the voice whispered. Muttered about in my head, mulled over my problems. The words were not words merely white noise, but I could hear it. I knew it was there. It was not until I entered Longbottom's Frondescent Foliage that I truly heard it speak.
Had it been Neville alone I might have been able to cope with the meeting, but she was there. Hermione Granger, though I had long since found that she had married the Weasley, stood there behind the counter muttering something about order forms. She saw me and I knew she went back in time. I knew she saw me cowering in the tall grass weeping over my infant son. I told them what I needed and waited as they got it for me. Her eyes rarely left my son.
He was far from the tiny baby she had rescued. He was a Malfoy and I knew that upset her. I stayed his comments and reprimanded him for speaking. She did not deserve his foul mouth, she needed to think that he was a good boy. A child she could be proud of saving.
When we left carrying our purchases I heard them talking before the door closed. Heard Neville comment on my behavior. It was nothing. He didn't know me and he didn't know about her having saved my life.
"Don't worry. The plan is set. Watch them. Watch them." The voice whispered softly in my ear.