Chapter: 1.
Chapter Title: Victory.
Character(s): Lucius Malfoy.
Disclaimer: I still don't own Harry Potter. I'm not going to pretend to in this individual chapter.
Recommended Listening: Pomp and Circumstance March #3 by Edward Elgar (no . . . it's not the one you're thinking of. Seriously. Go listen to it. Everybody gets a song! . . . and, believe me, I know dark classical music ).
You may call it ambition. You may call it perfectionism. Whatsoever name you give it, I always win. I always end up perfect. I alone stand as the ideal.
Fantasize, too, however so much as you wish, that this perfection stemmed somehow from my upbringing– and know you are incorrect. I was never abused; I was never even severely punished. I never required it. I spent no long hours locked away in cupboards, no days unable to sit down due to carefully placed Stinging Hexes, no mornings flushed and furious in the aftermath of an ignominious Howler.
Ambition is part of nature, not nurture; I would not have been nearly so successful had my drive for glory been forced upon me.
My father encouraged my passions, and gave me great advantages in achieving them, but he never took the role in shaping them. It was of my own accord that I pored countless hours over books in the manor library, forcing myself to memorize spells, repeating them over and over to myself until my lips grew dry and the forelock of my hair stuck to my sweating forehead like a silvery-blond headband. It was of my own willing that I would take my broom out into the morning mist and disappear until lunch, returning with chest heaving, muscles sore, endorphins racing, and Chasing skills greatly enhanced. It was I, who, with my father's express permission against the word of the Ministry but with goals of my own, spend half-day sessions in the basement, bouncing off the walls curses, hexes, and jinxes to the likes half the teachers at Hogwarts had never seen. So cursed was that basement wall that one of our house elves died from brushing against it. Father did anything he could to help me, of course, from supplying the books to buying the brooms to arguing my case against anyone who disapproved with my methods.
In fact, my father was met with many an offended reply when he took it upon himself to check on my progress. "Did you practice those charms I taught you yesterday?"
"Of course, Father."
"Did you use that new racing broom I bought you today?"
"Of course. If you'd have bothered to felt it, the twigs are still warm."
He would get the gist, and his displeasure at my tone would be the only correction he had to offer me.
Father was useful in two ways: He taught me the value of contacts, and he made them for me. By knowing the right people and having an advantage with them, there was always another way out, a plan B, an escape route. Through him, I met all the appropriate members of society, and gained both their trust and information for blackmail. I could both exploit the "persuasive powers" of Bellatrix Black or bend her to my will with threat of telling her mother just how many nights she had spent in the boys' dormitories of Slytherin. I could ask Rodolphus as a friend to write my essays for me, or embarrass him into telling me the answers to homework with threats of telling others about his first-year bouts of bed-wetting.
Hard-working as I was, I was never fool enough not to take an easier opportunity when it was granted me. I was Slytherin, after all– no hard-working Hufflepuff, studious Ravenclaw, honorable Gryffindor. I valued my talents more than I valued my hard-gained skills.
For instance, I had struggled with Potions all along. I had trained myself in the patience of it, but I believe it was my very over-concentration that ruined my brews. I would spend so long analyzing the color of the mixture that the flame would go out and the potion would spoil, or I would discard of so many ill-sized ingredients in exchange for more meticulously cut parts that I would waste the materials and fail yet again. It was through this Potions predicament that I won my most useful contact.
Severus Snape was unpopular, even in Slytherin, but I noticed him right away. I had developed an eye for talent that rivaled even Horace Slughorn's. He was a scrawny boy, years younger than I, but his year was full of unusual talents– James Potter, Sirius Black, Lily Evans (a Mudblood, of all things– had I not stated their year was unusual?) – that had been in dearth the years following Bellatrix's and my rivalries for power.
I first accosted him in the common room in the prime hours of the evening, when the chairs and couches were full of students hurrying through homework– or, rather, as this was Slytherin, bartering with one another over who would do what portion of the work. Slytherin society was an odd sort of commune; though each of us was preoccupied with himself before all others, there was great interaction involve the exchange of talents. Slytherins were not incapable of giving; they were merely incapable of giving without promise of worthwhile and useful compensation.
Severus's face, upturned in my presence beneath the thin fall of lank, shiny, dark hair, carried nothing but suspicion. I had made a point of interrupting him by sitting across from the spindly wooden chair on which he sat, throwing my feet up on the table, my boots on his notes taken in a tiny, spidery hand. He knew I was Head Boy– everyone did; my tall, blond figure was imposing and attractive, features befitting one of such high post.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" he sneered, the corner of his lip tugging upward.
I raised my eyebrows. "You're a talent at Potions, I've heard."
He quietly appraised me for a moment, searching my eyes with his own, fathomlessly black. He knew what I wanted. Yet his reply did not suggest it. "I'm not even the best in my year," he said, his voice still cynical and– I could barely admit it to myself– condescending.
"Your year must carry remarkable talent, then," I continued lightly. Though my eyes contained more light than his, I could hold a poker face when I needed. "Considering that I ask your help as top in my own year."
"You're not top in Potions," came a voice over my shoulder. Bellatrix leaned over the back of my chair lazily. Anyone else besides Bellatrix or her sisters would have looked slouchy and unattractive in such a position, but such was the Black bloodline. "Rodolphus carries that. It's all he carries," she added with an eye roll, "but even I'm ahead of you in it. You're third, in Potions class," she grinned. "And don't," she looked pointedly at Severus, "let him tell you he's top in everything else. We are presently tied." She met my eyes with an icy glare.
I sneered at her; I had known Bellatrix long enough that I still stooped to pulling faces at her. "Marks and rankings don't matter, Bella."
"Trix. Bellatrix. I never gave you permission to call me 'Bella,'" she turned up her nose.
"Yes, yes," I waved an impatient hand. "It's reserved for your sisters and parents and your filthy bloodtraitor cousin."
"It's reserved," she flushed, "for those closest to me. And Sirius is not owed the honor. Regulus may retain it, yes– but neither of you."
I knew if I pushed her any further I would have her screaming like her aunt in her notorious– and plentiful– Howlers.
She left us alone– or quietly watched from the background; Bellatrix was too curious on my affairs to leave off entirely– and I continued with Severus.
"Look– you've got a keen mind for the Dark Arts. Don't think just because I'm Head Boy I don't notice my Housemate's ambitions. And don't think I don't know you haven't had the best circumstances for learning them." Snape was no wizarding name; though Severus was clearly not fullblood, he was at least partially pure– on his mother's side.
"Think of all you could do to my blasted cousin," Bellatrix shouted back to us. I knew she had been listening.
Severus grinned at this. "I am aware you are in possession of– abilities– I would like to learn, yes," he conceded. "And you wish me to assist with your Potions in exchange for tutoring me?"
"Of course," I said. I held out my hand. "Have we a deal?"
"Oh, don't swear on it," Severus nearly rolled his eyes. "I will give as I receive."
"I've got a test tomorrow. I'll go first."
Severus handed me his potions book, a ratty, secondhand copy that appeared to be an earlier edition than recommended for our terms at school. It was, however, the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6– meant for just below my year, and not his. He was as advanced I had suspected. "Read the notes in the margins for the potion you need to learn. They're all you need to know. I will know if you read more. And know also," he met my eyes intently, "that I do not usually entrust the entire workings of my notes to other students."
I flipped the book over, scanning the unsightly rips. On the back was scrawled "Property of the Half-Blood Prince." I sniffed. "Proud of that, are you?"
His expression did not waver. "I'm no coward about my bloodline," he said equivocally.
"Well, then, my 'Prince'-- ha, where'd you get that one?"
"If you must know, it was my mother's last name. And there is even he who calls himself the Dark Lord," he added, no doubt in hopes I would no further jest.
"Yes, yes. And Regulus Black's the Little King . . . and Nero Travers is our Emperor . . . and I'll be God," I laughed. I flipped the book back over, one-handedly. "I can give you a lesson, tonight, if you wish," I offered. "I'll stay up late and read, if it's really as easy as you say. Do me a favor, will you, and use what I teach you to get rid of that Evans girl in your year. It's a bloody disgrace, having her better than any pureblood. Even Slughorn's gotten fond of her." It was a shame for the Slytherins to bear, seeing the Head of House consorting favorably with a girl not only of the rival house, but of inferior blood.
Oddly, the palest pink blush suffused Severus's face. Neither of us spoke on it.
After a few weeks, during which Severus cut a gash in James Potter's shoulder and levitated Peter Pettigrew (he had been aiming for Sirius, but alas– it was amusing anyway) due to my teachings, I was ahead of both Bellatrix and Rodolphus. The reactions were showing.
"Look, I've got ways of paying you back if you'll help me, too," Bellatrix was stroking Severus's leg when I caught her in the common room one night. Severus, amazingly, was neither flushed nor pale; rather, he eyed Bellatrix with shocked disgust. I laughed until I felt a burning at the back of my neck, undoubtably the result of Bellatrix's swiftly bared wand.
It was put out quickly, however, by a soft Finite Incantatum from behind me. I looked to see Narcissa Black, quelling my burns and quelling Bellatrix's vengeful looks with her own icy glare.
Narcissa became another victory– or, rather, she was just another piece that made my life perfection. Though so many had suspected that Bellatrix and I, rivals as we were and similar in age, were meant to be, I would have no one but her sister– lighter, calmer, and oddly sweeter. Narcissa was not something I received by talent or even hard work, but she came, and I discovered love.
There were no tricks in our lover's world. Though Severus and I had our businesslike relationship, though I retained close ties with Bellatrix and Rodolphus, they were with reserves, they were capitalistic exchanges of uses, barbaric to the unselfishness– so unpracticed between two Slytherins– that was love. I preferred to give without expectation to Narcissa.
Still, the perfectionism was not gone. I graduated Head Boy, top in the class in half of the course– including, of course, Potions– sharing with Bellatrix, with numerous honors and countless job offers from the Ministry and high-ranking businesses. Horace Slughorn watched me on tenterhooks to see where he'd be getting his next discount or yearly gift. My father, however, stepped in and recommended the path that had given him his every advantage in life.
I joined the Death Eaters, one of the first of the second generation. Rodolphus– another second-generation– and Bellatrix were soon to follow. Horace Slughorn lost his interest (alas, the Death Eaters never did do much good to groupies; one had to be a member to receive the benefits), but I gained a new playing field, a new realm in which to win victory. I had been the perfect son, then the perfect student: My final and greatest goal was to be the perfect Death Eater.
I played the role perfectly in the first few years, yet my bout with the Dark Lord had proved worthless when he fell only years later. Though this was a blow to seeming perfection, I and my more clever companions– the fanatical Bellatrix dragged her husband and his brother off to Azkaban along with the neurotic Mulciber, sociopathic Dolohov, overly-paranoid Rookwood, and the young Bartemius Crouch, Jr., all equally unstable– I satisfied myself with achieving a perfect place in society, respected by the wizarding community. I gave my gifts and sat my terms on the boards. The connections only made everything more the perfect.
Then came another round of that indescribable love. In the year before the Dark Lord's collapse, Narcissa had bore a son– perfectly: the firstborn, a boy, healthy and whole, the spitting image of his father.
Yet with this love came fatherhood, a game new and different from that of a husband. I was creating a person, not merely combining with one. Like my father before me, I shaped him perfectly, and he rose in my image: Quidditch afficionado (due in part to my advantages to him; I owed it to him), prefect, member of the Inquisitorial Squad that did not exist in my day. He required very little encouragement; such was his desire to please me that the mere mention of any flaw brought a flush of shame to his cheeks and an instant result of improvement. That was the only difference between the two of us, so similar that we even looked twins a generation apart: His ambition was contingent upon my pleasure; his ambitions were mine, not his own.
Yet as the light began to immerse my son, I fell into shadow. The Dark Lord rose once again, and I was forced to confess a mistake– an act I had never grown accustomed to. I was no longer perfect in his eyes, and there was much to be done to remedy this and reconcile my place as the best Death Eater. I had not gone to Azkaban for him. Bellatrix gloated at his side.
I tried my hardest, but Bellatrix spoiled my rise to glory. She had never learned the art of patience and hard work as I had. Our greatest mission, the retrieval of the Prophecy– made necessary by an earlier mistake that had fallen Severus Snape, down to be killed by the Death Eaters but still so necessary a connection with my son at Hogwarts– was destroyed by the conflict of Bellatrix and myself.
The only good was that I served my chance to go to Azkaban for the Dark Lord, while Bellatrix remained at large. Connections were enough to maintain Narcissa and Draco's standing without me.
Yet she was in favor as I sat in prison, after a brief punishment I– and the thought insulted me as it had in my youth at my father's questioning– would likely endure myself upon release. As if in mockery, Bellatrix continued the Dark Arts training I had been giving my son all through his years. She had the means to gain the Dark Lord's favor.
There was only one way, in my position, to do the same. I had to sacrifice my son. Draco was capable of it. He was made of the same as his father, the same as me. I would have capable in his place; I would have shone above and beyond my duty.
The Dark Lord was pleased; there was a mission, in fact, far greater than the retrieval of the Prophecy. My failure would be more than made up for– and only Draco could carry it out. He would win victory for us both, both perfection, both the perfect Death Eater.
Yet the news came to me in the dark of the prison, brought by my pallid wife under dark robes, flanked by dementors and Ministry officials. Her skin shone white and translucent– ghostly so, more so than ever– in the light of the passageway, beyond the bars of my cell. She was entitled her monthly visit, which she had avoided after the first on my orders that they weakened her to a state I could not bear to see her in. Yet she had news for me– and, though she could not speak it in the presence of her guards, she did not need to.
Draco had failed. In my absence, he had failed to sense the weight of my need of him.
The Dark Lord did not blame me. It had happened before. The son could not be responsible for the actions of the father; the father could not be responsible for the actions of the son.
In giving him up, I still had achieved my victory. I had become perfect, no matter how my son full. So sacrificing, so acquiescent tot the cause, I alone stood as the ideal, the perfect Death Eater.
Yet no one could stand with me at that top, not even my son.