Father and Son

"One father is enough to governe one hundred sons, but not a hundred sons one father." (George Herbert)

"Father! I cannot believe what I'm seeing! You! – You get away from him!"

The voice was indignant and loud and cut through the fog in his mind. Slowly Lucius Malfoy opened his aching, gritty eyes and found himself staring at a cracked and peeling ceiling lit by a few rather dim torches. For a moment the greenish-brown marbled stains of mold flickering above him actually arrested his attention. With the exception of an insistent pounding in his head he felt strangely weightless and unconcerned.

"Merlin! He's bleeding! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The voice again. He should recognize it. That sounded a lot like Draco. But Draco was at Hogwarts. No, wait! Draco was in Prague with his aunt Cornelia. Where was this place anyway?

"Don't worry," answered a dark, silky female voice off to his side. "I just had a taste. Quite revolting, actually, with all that firewhisky he's had. No damage done."

Lucius blinked as he recognized the second speaker.

"Desdemona?" he croaked and tried to move his head. His neck hurt, and as he brought his hand up to the sharp piercing stab of pain he felt wetness on his fingers. That finally jolted him awake. He rolled over, propping himself up on one elbow.

He realized he was lying half-naked among the blood-stained, dirty-white sheets of a narrow, sagging bed, and stretched out alongside him rested a woman in black robes, the chill of her pale skin seeping through the thin threadbare cotton of his blanket.

Raven black hair framed a narrow, aristocratic face of almost unearthly beauty, and her gaping robes revealed glimpses of a perfect, alabaster body. She licked her ruby-red lips invitingly and smiled. Still Lucius' instinctive reaction to his rather tempting companion was to gather his sheets to his chest, scoot away from her and reach for his wand that leant against a rickety chair on the other side of the bed.

"Get away from me, you filth," he rasped at her while he slid his magical weapon from its sheath. In the half-light of the torches he saw the tall, dark-clad form of his son stand in the middle of the room looking aghast at the spectacle before him. Draco was wearing a traveling cloak and had pulled out his wand in protection.

The precaution was well taken, as the woman who appeared to share his bed – he still wasn't sure where exactly that was – happened to be an honest-to-goddess vampire.

The undead creature regarded him with a pout now.

"Lucius, why, I'm deeply hurt! Last night you were singing a different song. Last night when I found you in Knockturn Alley and you begged me to come with you. To come with you and be with you and ease your terrible loneliness."

"Begged you! You! You've got to be crazy! What the hell did you do to me?"

Desdemona, the one-time lover and personal assistant of Gaius Belisarius, Mr. Tethering's senior partner, leaned in revealing long, ivory fangs as she briefly leered at her companion. Then she swung her legs over the side of her bed to now regard the younger Malfoy.

"Men," she said conversationally, tossing back her black long hair and stretching her arms above her head so her robes revealed even more of her naked body underneath. "When they want you they are sweet as fresh blood. When they tire of you they are harsher than sunlight. I am convinced you would be more gallant than your father, young Master Malfoy…"

Lucius caught his son's eyes straying to Desdemona's breasts as he seemed mesmerized by the vampire's pale, slender body.

"Draco!" he growled and had the satisfaction to see the young man snap to attention, flushed with embarrassment.

"She bit you!" his son said accusingly. "You are bleeding all over the place. And what are you doing with her anyway? And why are you here?"

Lucius found that he couldn't quite answer those questions in a satisfactory manner, even to himself, but Desdemona's throaty laugh interrupted him.

"He had just been released from Azkaban, young Master Malfoy. Oh yes, they thought he had killed a muggle, but they couldn't charge him, and Advocatus Tethering got him out. I followed him from the law firm when it got dark and found him at the Bat's Roost, drowning his sorrows in firewhisky. Imagine: his faithless wife has left him! He was only to glad to accept my comfort and companionship."

"Rubbish," spluttered the wizard, jabbing her with his wand.

She turned back to him.

"You know," she said lazily, looking at him and finally doing up her robes. "There they go teaching young wizards and witches that crosses and garlic will protect you against our kind. But the true guardian of your virtue was your vice last night, dearest Lucius.

You cannot believe how disgusting your blood tasted after all that swill you downed at the bar. And there I had always expected to have you at my mercy one night and to be able to turn you, have you come and haunt the night with me. How disappointing, when one mouthful of you sent me gagging already. And then when I hoped you could at least satisfy another craving of mine I was foiled again."

She got up and faced Draco.

"Don't worry about your father, little one. He was so drunk he passed out before anything happened. I've had the pleasure of listening to him snoring for the past three hours. It is really quite frightening what age does to you dying ones."

She regarded her former lover wistfully.

"You were such a beast once, Lucius. Pity."

"Get out!" he snarled. Having this woman mock him in front of his son was just too much to bear.

"Or what?" she taunted him.

He sat up straight, not caring for the moment that the sheets fell from his bare chest and pooled in his lap.

"How about an immobilis spell until the sun comes up in a few hours. I'll even open the blinds for you to enjoy the beautiful morning light, sweet!"

When she turned to him again this time her eyes flashed in anger.

"Oh yeah?" she hissed. "Who are you to be so high and mighty? I've sucked on the necks of washed-up homeless wizards here in Knockturn Alley who were in better shape than you were tonight. You've got nothing to be proud of, dying one! Next time I will not be this considerate."

Lucius watched her rise and lower her arms once, decisively. Then a small grey bat fluttered from the empty shell of her robes and disappeared through the gap in the door to the room. The wizard's eyes followed her and then came to rest on his son.

"Draco," he said tentatively. This was not exactly a situation he had wanted to be in when confronting his firstborn. Still he was surprised when his son pocketed his wand and rushed across the room to sit next to him on the bed.

"Let me see that, father," the younger Malfoy demanded, and a moment later his cool fingers moved over his neck. "Shit, she really bit you! You actually let a vampire bite you, father! Merlin! What's wrong with you!"

"Well, it wasn't exactly like I made a conscious choice, son," said Lucius with some exasperation. "Things haven't been going so well these past few days. Anyway, as you can plainly see, she didn't kill me with her bite, so I won't turn and there's nothing to worry about."

Draco had convinced himself that the bite-marks really were not that deep and sat back on the creaking mattress, licking his lips. Overall he seemed to take the situation in his stride; and Lucius actually felt some quiet admiration for the composure of his son.

"Look I got this letter about Lavinia," Draco said, looking slightly nervous now. "So I came looking for you. The manor was empty. All the elves could tell me that you were held at Azkaban, and they were ready to charge you with the murder of a muggle. So I went to see Tethering, who told me you'd been released. Seems they botched it at the Ministry. Typical, I guess!

And then I couldn't find you. I looked everywhere. I was worried. The last anyone had seen you had been at the Bat's Roost, drinking with someone from the Ministry called Spofford. Well, they saw you leave with a black-robed woman. Who could have guessed she merely dragged you upstairs, to THIS! Merlin, you could have become one of THEM! "

Lucius winced at the obvious disgust and disapproval of his son. At least he finally knew where he was. Still, finding himself in the middle of a cheap wizarding guest house and being reprimanded for almost getting turned into a vampire wasn't exactly Lucius' idea of interacting with his heir. He focused on the information Draco had given him.

"A letter about the girl?" he asked. "Who wrote to you? Eleanor?"

He felt annoyed that his wife would drag his son into this battle, but the young wizard shook his head.

"No. I haven't heard from her. Nana wrote me."

"Maleficia! Why, that bitch…"

"Father! She said Lavinia was a squib, and that you threw her out, you disowned her as your daughter."

Lucius shrugged his shoulders and looked to the side avoiding the accusatory stare of his son.

"Yes, I did," he confessed. "So?"

"So!" Draco got up from the bed and started pacing the narrow room. "You can't do that," he said.

"Can't," repeated Lucius in surprise at the decisive tone. "How dare you take that attitude with me! Last time I checked I was the head of the family, so I don't think it's up to you to tell me what I can and cannot do, Draco!"

The young wizard halted and looked back at him in shock.

"But she's your daughter. She's my sister. She's part of our family."

"Not if she is not a witch," said Lucius coldly. It was time to stop this discussion once and for all.

His son mulled that over for a moment.

"Other wizarding families have squibs," he answered slowly. "We had that boy in my year: he was nearly a squib, Neville Longbottom. And the Longbottoms are a pureblood family – a respected one, too. Why can't we…"

"Oh, so you are comparing the Malfoys to the Longbottoms now!" asked Lucius heatedly. "I hardly think they are quite in the same league as us. Why, if I recall correctly in the 1800s the Longbottoms were still barely more than mudblood scum!"

Draco's shoulders sagged. He licked his lips as if he wanted to still make his point but seemed somehow reluctant to speak.

"The Puceys go back further, and they have a real squib in their family," he finally confessed. "Melanie says…"

"Melanie – bloody – Pucey! The damn witch you are hell-bent on making my daughter-in-law," exploded the older wizard, suddenly acutely aware of the fact Draco had him at a disadvantage. He was hardly in the position to get out of bed to grab his son by his robes and shake some sense into him.

"I knew there was a reason you had to find me so desperately. I know all about her uncle. Do you think I haven't made it my business to research her family? Why do you think I'm against your relationship with her? We need another bloody squib in the family like you need a toothache!"

Draco briefly ducked his head at his father's outbreak, then the famous Malfoy temper got the better of him.

"You are the right one to pontificate about the Puceys," he spluttered angrily. "Your own aunt was a squib! You are no different than Melanie."

"Shut up!" Lucius' voice cut through Draco's protests like a whip. "I told you never to speak of it, never to mention it if you love your life. Your grandfather would have killed his wife himself if she hadn't been already dead when he found out. I will not repeat his mistake. I will not acknowledge that – that child! Family honor demands…"

This time it was Draco who interrupted.

"Family honor," he sneered, his pale, pointed face reddening. "Look at you talking about family honor: sitting half-drunk and naked in a filthy bed in the cheapest low-life joint in all of Knockturn Alley with a fresh vampire bite on your neck! What a pile of bat-shit! I thought a Malfoy wouldn't want to be seen dead in a hole like this! I'm ashamed of you, father! Merlin! Your precious bloodline made Lavinia the way she is. Or are you blaming Eleanor for her being a squib, hm!"

With his last words he had put his hand into the pocket of his robes and before his father had time to react he had the presence of mind to intone a portus spell and vanish.

Lucius slammed his hands down on the mattress and sent some choice swearwords after him, but it was already too late. Next door someone pounded against the wall.

"Shut the fuck up in there or use an avada already," a rough voice snarled. "People are trying to sleep here!"

Still shaking with rage Lucius lifted up his wand and for a moment contemplated granting his neighbor his wish. Then he threw himself back on the bed and put his hands over his face.

Draco's final accusation had hit the mark, whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not. He could not go on like this. He could not go on waiting, and hoping and hurting. He had to make a decision. He had to take back control of his life. He had never been weak, never had anyone or anything get close enough to him to become vulnerable like that.

"It's time to end this," he murmured to himself. "It's time to decide, once and for all."

He got up and started to dress calmly and methodically ignoring his headache and the lancing pain in his neck. His face had become closed off, and the icy glace of his grey eyes with which he scanned the room one last time before disapparating held no expression of emotion whatsoever.