Spoiler Warning: This story is a sixth year fic that follows on from the events of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. As a conseqeunce this story contains *major* spoilers for book 5. You have been warned.
SNAKE HEALER: THE MALFOY MUGGLE LOVER
CHAPTER 9: INSIGHTS
A harsh staring contest between father and son ensured, the cold, calculating gaze of Lucius Malfoy meeting the defiant glare of Jason Malfoy, the child the world, including the boy himself, knew as Harry Potter. Both men refused to back down, attempting to impose their will on the other. No words were spoken, as both Malfoys directed their energy into besting the other.
It was Lucius who spoke first, still refusing to break eye contact. He had realised that winning the boy's trust required more than just a dominating glare; it needed the right words as well. "So," he said drawing the vowel out so as to let the word hang in the air and reverberate around Harry's mind before continuing, "You are ready to listen, to hear the truth now. That is why you have returned."
It was just as well that Lucius didn't expect an immediate response from Harry as he couldn't have got one with that Gryffindor still trapped in the body-bind, which Lucius had placed on him minutes before so as to ensure that he didn't attack Draco in a fit of rage. Fortunately the spell did not affect the expressiveness of Harry's eyes, which visibly displayed their defiant glare in the face of the elder Malfoy's perceived domineering. Although Harry would have interpreted the slightest gesture or merest hint of a word as an attempt at dominance, even if it had been something as innocuous as saying hello or goodbye.
Not that Lucius was attempting to dominate Harry, at least not completely. He certainly wanted to control Harry; being in control was a habit, which was hard, and in Lucius' eyes, unwise, to break, especially when it came to dealing with someone as important and as powerful as Harry Potter. Of course gaining control of Harry wouldn't be easy, a point rammed home in the most dramatic of fashions just a few moments previously. It was just as well, therefore, that Lucius was not afraid of challenges for nobody could call the task he was about to undertake anything else. Even more importantly for Lucius, though, was that the scale of the challenge facing him was surpassed by just one other thing: the price of failure, which included not just the destruction of the Malfoy Family or victory for Voldemort but quite possibly both and a lot more besides.
However, nothing could be achieved though with Harry in a body-bind, which was preciously why the aforementioned spell was removed the moment after he had ensured that there was nothing more to Harry's anger than distrust, defiance and the understandable reaction to Lucius' status as a death eater. Not that Harry showed any gratitude in having the spell removed, preferring instead to bolster his attempts at intimidation by drawing himself to his full height and proceeding to glare even more fiercely at his father.
"Say what you want, Malfoy, as long as you tell me the truth about what happened between you and my mother. That's the real truth, not the neat little story which you would like to be the truth," Harry drawled snidely once he had met Lucius directly in the eye. He knew that the death eater was an expert liar, but he was pretty sure that in meeting his father eye to eye he could spot the lies and thus discover what he wasn't being told.
"I have nothing to hide and no need to avoid the truth, Harry," Lucius responded sternly. He wasn't annoyed or angry at his son for saying that he would lie, if his relationship with Lilly had ended badly then he would have, but it hadn't and nothing about his history with Harry's mother could severely jeopardise his nascent and rather tempestuous relationship with his younger son, "There was no nastiness or hatred involved. Lilly and I got on well and our relationship ended amicably."
"I'm sure it did," Harry laughed mocking, his anger still clearly evident, "But then whatever you did to my mum to get her to sleep with you in the first place must have made sure of that. You wouldn't want any angry ex-lovers would you, they might mark your oh-so-perfect reputation."
"The only person who deserved a perfect reputation was your mother, considering what the scoundrel she called a husband got up to." Lucius sneered, in a tone, which could, in a pinch have been called protesting if one took into account the fact that Lucius Malfoy never showed any hint of desperation or petulance,
Harry's lips formed themselves into a scowl, whilst he knew full well that James Potter was a bit of a jerk, he couldn't have been that bad or his mother wouldn't have married him otherwise.
"No sooner had they married then that bastard was off having an affair with another woman…"
"You can talk. You probably did the same thing," Harry snapped aggressively, not bothering to question the truth of what Lucius had said because it fitted in perfectly with the model of behaviour that he had seen in Snape's pensieve. Not that Harry had ever considered such a possibility before, but it did provide the perfect excuse for his mother's behaviour. From what he had heard Lilly Potter was not the type to cheat on her husband, but only the most stoic of women not would be prepared to conduct an affair if her husband was doing the same thing.
"Narcissa knew exactly what I was doing and consented to me doing it. My wife knew ours was a marriage of convenience and did not expect me to stay faithful," Lucius responded blandly, sounding as if he were talking about something as everyday as the weather or the quidditch scores. Surprisingly Harry's outburst had calmed Lucius rather than make him angrier, "Your mother on the other hand was led to believe that Potter wasn't planning his next conquest as he walked up the aisle. Potter saw a girl who was desperately in love with him and married her just to make sure he had someone to fall back on if all his other fan girls deserted him. The sad thing is that it worked; the moment one of his conquests gave him what he deserved, Lilly ran back straight to him as if nothing had happened."
"With you as the alternative, I don't blame her. My dad may have been an arrogant prick but at least he wasn't an evil arrogant prick." Harry replied, his angry tone contrasting with the calmness of Lucius.
Lucius mentally shook his head in despair at the young man's moralising. The Gryffindor tendency to divide everybody and everything into good and evil had always annoyed him and not only because he was automatically classified as evil as a consequence of his house allegiance. But also because in adhering to moral rules too strictly the typical Gryffindor was overemotional and prone to acting illogically and stupidly, both modes of behaviour which annoyed him to no end. Of course the best way to respond to such moralising tendencies was with cold hard logic and the hope that the moraliser wasn't so wool-brained that he or she refused to acknowledge the perfectly obvious, as was the dominant tendency among the Weasley family, a trait which was the cause of the infamous Weasley poverty and their blood feuds with the five most powerful wizarding families in the British Isles.
"Just because I am a death eater it does not mean I approve of the dark lord's methods," Lucius replied, a hint of annoyance entering his voice. The Malfoy patriarch knew that in order for Harry to accept him that he had to deal with the death eater issue once and for all, but that didn't mean he had to like doing it, "I may not be a muggle-lover, but I like many of the death eaters, do not approve of meaningless violence and a genocide of mudbloods either. It serves no purpose except to make the world your enemy and damage your cause irrevocably, as was proved during the last war and will be proved during this."
"You didn't seem to disapprove of violence while torturing muggles during the World Cup. And surely the aim of opening the chamber of secrets must surely have been to kill all the muggle-borns in Hogwarts," Harry sneered, not believing a word that Lucius was saying. Whilst Harry knew that there were death eaters that genuinely disapproved of Voldemort's methods, there was absolutely evidence that Malfoy was one of them and plenty of evidence to the contrary. Besides Draco must have picked up his hero-worshiping of Voldemort from somewhere and the most obvious source would be the father who the Slytherin had idolised so much.
"My goal in opening the chamber of secrets was not a massacre of mudbloods, but merely to ensure their expulsion from Hogwarts. If massacre had been my goal then I would have chosen a somewhat surer of performing rather than through a basilisk controlled by a sentient diary which can occasionally possess a student for a short period of time," Lucius responded, his curt tone failing to disguise how tetchy he felt about the whole chamber episode. "As it was my failure to remove you from Hogwarts and Riddle's attempt to gain a body sabotaged the whole thing anyway. As for the events of the quidditch world cup, despite the beliefs of the dark lord to the contrary, that was Walden Macnair's idea not my own. I am not normally stupid enough so as to engage in death eater activity when every Auror in the country and most of the Law Enforcement Patrol are only a few hundred yards away, the risk of capture and arrest is far too great."
"How on earth is releasing a deadly monster going to lead to the expulsion of the muggle-borns in Hogwarts? Dumbledore would never have allowed it, he'd rather have closed the school!" Harry asked incredulously. He was still extremely sceptical about Lucius' claimed loyalties, despite the overwhelming evidence that Draco believed his father to be disloyal to Voldemort. Whilst Draco was not a good enough actor to have faked his reactions, Lucius' story did have plenty of holes in it.
"Which is why I tried to replace Dumbledore with a headmaster who had a somewhat more enlightened attitude to mudbloods and the muggle kind first," Lucius snapped in response, "Rather than simply forcing the governors to impose a ban, against the wishes of the headmaster. The old coot would have most likely resigned rather than see the expulsion of his precious mud bloods, a move which would have only heightened our opposition."
Lucius' natural dislike at being questioned in a manner such as Harry's had only served to amplify the bad mood, which the argument with Draco had put him in, and the disquiet he felt while discussing both his loyalties and the catastrophe surrounding the chamber of secrets incident. Discussion of his loyalties was especially sensitive for him because of the consequences if the truth if it became public knowledge. It wasn't as if Harry was the most likely person to give his spying game away though, the boy could keep things a secret - unlike Cornelius Fudge, who would most likely tell everything if he was captured by the death eaters. A fact Lucius was sure that hadn't gone unnoticed by Voldemort.
"So what!" Harry exclaimed furiously, his face a picture of angry disgust. He was incensed by his supposed father's lack of concern for the real issue at hand, whilst Lucius' reply had been enlightening, it had not answered the real question about the whole Chamber of Secrets incident, "You released a deadly monster, that had already killed somebody, into Hogwarts just so you could fulfil some bigoted and pathetic political goal of yours! Five people nearly died!"
"I have already said that I did not want anyone, not even a mudblood, to die. I would not wish death on anyone, except, naturally, for my enemies. However, I will not lie to you. There are cases where one person's noble sacrifice, willing or not, can lead to greater benefits for the whole of society…"
Harry grimaced in disgust as the Malfoy patriarch described the murder of muggle-borns in the most sickening of tones, not that the tone itself was sickening, but rather the combination of a praiseful vocal expression and the subject being discussed.
"Perhaps there are," Harry intervened strongly, "but this is not one of them. When you opened the chamber you were plotting cold-blooded murder not self-sacrifice. What you tried to do was inexcusable and downright evil. Even if you were trying to do something great and noble, you cannot justify killing someone to achieve it. Murder is wrong, whatever the situation."
"Life is not that that simple, Harry, not that I would expect you to understand," Lucius responded sternly, sounding far too much like an exasperated father scolding his errant son for Harry's liking. The situation was surreal enough as it was for Harry at that moment, without Lucius Malfoy making his threats good and starting to act like his father.
"The ends justify the means," Lucius continued in the same tone of voice. "What you do is irrelevant as long as its consequences are good for your family and for society, be it defeating the dark lord or aiding St Mungo's Hospital. It is not the action itself, which defines good or evil, but what happens as a result. Surely you of all people must realise that killing the dark lord may be murder, but it most certainly is not evil."
"That's different," Harry snapped without thinking, before pausing to think for a reason why. It wasn't as if he was disagreeing just for the sake of opposing Lucius, he genuinely felt as if his supposed father was wrong. "It doesn't matter so much if you kill Voldemort or any of his death eaters because we're at war with them. Killing people and winning battles is what war is about. If you don't kill them, then they'll most likely kill you instead. It's still wrong, but in the face of someone like Voldemort, it's the only thing you can do."
"I see you have inherited some of your mother's common-sense, despite your up-bringing at those ghastly muggle relatives of yours and the influence of the Weasleys. Although you could do with displaying a little more of it," Lucius sneered, in a tone which despite his words was not particularly complementary. It also caused Harry to scowl in defiance at the Malfoy patriarch's hatred for the family of his best friend, "Although your mother was as moralistic as you and the rest of your house, at least she, like you, did not fall for the belief that war is somehow glorious and noble, and that it can solve all our problems. An attitude, which is regretfully rife among the membership of Gryffindor House, both past and present."
"Not everyone thinks like that. Hermione certainly doesn't. Besides, it's a belief which is far more common in Slytherin than in Gryffindor," Harry contested hotly. Whilst he loved Gryffindor dearly, he did have to admit that many of his housemates were a little too happy to get involved in the war. But then for Harry, violence would always be linked to Voldemort, Dudley and the death eaters, all of whom enjoyed it a little too much for Harry's tastes, whilst many of his housemates had never had the benefit, if it could be called that, of Harry's experiences and had never seen the horrors of war and evil up close.
"Among children maybe," Lucius replied, "But we soon grow out of it. But then Slytherins are always willing to adapt ourselves and our beliefs to the truth and to the circumstances we find ourselves in, unlike you Gryffindors who cling onto your beliefs in the face of even the fiercest logic."
"Willing to adapt?" Harry questioned mockingly, giving half of a bitter laugh, "I suppose that's one way of putting it, but then I would prefer to phrase it as 'spineless cowards, who automatically seek the protection of the biggest and baddest kid on the block rather than stand up for themselves like any decent person would.'"
"I believe that the trait you so inaccurately describe is known as survival," Lucius sneered, "Not that you would know anything about it, considering the way you have gone foolishly charging headlong into danger every year since you started at Hogwarts. We prefer not to take such risks though, being somewhat more attached to our lives and aware of the fact that anybody, even the lowest of peasants has the potential to do great things if they are alive, while nobody can do anything if dead."
To the outsider, it looked as if nothing had changed in the expressions on their faces or in the unbroken gaze that had lasted the length of the conversation. Not even Lucas, who stood patiently in the corner watching the proceedings could discern the heightened tension and fiercer distrust that had gradually built up as the conversation went on, as it had turned from a battle of wills between father and son to a battle for victory between the age old enemies of Slytherin and Gryffindor. Even if Lucas had been able to discern the difference he would not have been able to realise the most remarkable thing of all: that an open and honest conversation had taken place in the first place, with each side arguing his position to the other. But as it was Lucas simply stood there, his mind calculating how best to complete the task his mother had set him: make Harry accept Lucius as his father.
He was extremely disappointed therefore when they were interrupted by one of the house elves who cheerily informed all three of them that it was time for lunch.
Apologies for taking so long in writing this chapter but I have been incredibly busy over the past few weeks and have had little time to write. As I said before this will continue for the next few months, so don't expect quick updates until the end of the summer.
With the exception of a little prodding here and there from me this chapter mostly wrote itself. Much of it surprising even myself, especially his extremely utilitarian conception of morality, which creates a few inconsistancies between this and the previous chapter. Most of these relate to the importance he places to family over society as a whole and can be resolved by attributing them to his tendency to telling people what they want to hear, something he does to great effect in this chapter. After all Harry wants to hear the truth and Lucius tells it to him, even if he glosses over it a little.
I have also taken the opportuntiy to explicitly state Lucas' role in this fic. He's there in the background, trying to bring Harry and Lucius together. He's not going to be Harry's new best friend, someone else is pegged for that role, nor is he even going to turn up at Hogwarts.
Finally a few clarifications. Harry will not get re-sorted. Nor will he get more Malfoyish. You don't have to be a Slytherin or act like a Slytherin to become friends with a Slytherin.