Chapter Seven
'Illis Paternus'
The Sins of the Father
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Hermione found Draco sitting on the day bed by the fire in his room. With a soft knock she entered and sat down on the day bed opposite him.
"You can still change your mind Draco" She implored, "there is no need for you to do this."
Draco looked at her and smiled slowly and sadly. "You don't believe that any more than I do," he said. "I think you; Tonks and maybe Lupin are the only people that believe I might actually be telling the truth. If I don't take this serum and let them all ask their questions of me, they will never believe me – and that could mean we lose the war against Voldemort and I cannot possibly live with that. We both know that I won't live if he rises to full power again. This is the only shot I have at making things right."
Hermione realized that what he was saying was absolutely the truth, but it saddened her nonetheless. "They're almost ready for you downstairs. Is there anything you need?" She could not explain the feeling of guilt that she felt at Draco having to go through this just so he could be believed.
"Harry stopped in earlier; he tried to convince me I didn't need to do this too. He said that you had volunteered to test the serum. What was it like?" he did a poor job of hiding the fact that he was apprehensive taking something a Weasley twin had concocted.
"I have to admit, I was surprised. It's actually not unpleasant, after you drink it this warm sensation starts in the back of your mouth and sort of winds its way up into your head. It's like all control over your impulse to speak is quashed, you want to just blurt everything out and you have no filtering control at all. I hate to say it, but I found it quite liberating."
"That's what I'm hoping for"; he said softly "liberation." Draco smiled; a stray lock of platinum hair falling across one eye. He reminded her very much of Harry in that moment Hermione decided, then to her surprise and to his, he reached out and touched her hand as it lay on the bed next to her. "Thank you for believing me, it was more than I could dared have hope Hermione."
With that, he got up from the bed and walked haltingly down the stairs to the main living room to face his fate.
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Malfoy looked like a man about to be hanged, Ron decided, and it served the bastard right. Part of him had almost expected that Malfoy would stride into the room, demand the serum and order them about. But he had not, he had arrived quietly, followed down the stairs by Hermione, he nodded to Lupin and Moody as they indicated the sofa on which he was to sit, but had not said a word.
Ron glared daggers at him, but if Malfoy noticed, he did not indicate it.
"You'll burst an eye ball glaring like that." George said from his seat beside Ron.
"Piss off George, Malfoy's a right git and you know it. He's probably only here to bring down the Order for You Know Who anyway." Ron grumbled.
"Well, you'll get your chance to ask him tonight. But I think little brother that you should reserve judgment until you hear what he has to say. Don't want to 'injure yourself jumping to conclusions' now does he Tonks." George grinned at Tonks who sat on the other side of Ron.
Tonks shot George a wan smile, and then looked perplexedly at Draco, who merely smiled weakly at her. She had strenuously objected to using the serum, particularly as he was still injured and physically weakened. She'd had a hard time dealing with the fact that it had been Draco's idea, not the Orders' for the chemically aided interrogation to take place.
Ron sighed and slumped back in his chair, this he decided, was a complete waste of time.
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Former Hogwarts nurse Madame Pomfrey, now Head of Healing at St Mungo's sat on the sofa next to Draco.
"Are you sure you're up to this Mr Malfoy?" she asked quietly.
"I want this Madame Pomfrey, I need this." He said softly, "And if you don't mind too much, would you call me Draco? Malfoy is my fathers' name you see, and I'm not overly fond of it."
Madame Pomfrey was slightly taken aback, but for the first time since she had met Draco Malfoy ten years ago, she looked at him and saw a human being, albeit one in deep conflict.
"Alright then Draco, I'll be right here if you need me." And with that, she moved to a chair a few feet away to keep an eye on proceedings.
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Minerva McGonagall arrived unexpectedly at Number Twelve, flooing in from her most recent Order mission just two minutes before they were to start, if she was surprised to see Draco, it did not show on her time worn features.
Lupin handed Draco the vial containing 10 drops of the serum – enough to last for just under an hour. Without hesitation Draco drank it down in a single swallow, surprised to find that it tasted of bubblegum.
As the warm sensation that Hermione had described earlier began, he relaxed into it. His mind, so long a closed book, seemed to recognize that salvation was at hand and opened. He took a deep breath and looked at Lupin, who, recognizing the glazing over of his eyes, began his questions.
"Can you please tell me your name?"
"Draco Malfoy."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty years old, I'll be twenty one next month."
"Are you a Death Eater?"
"No."
"Did you ever want to become a Death Eater?"
"No."
"Is your father a Death Eater?"
"Yes, he's Voldemort's second in command."
"Why then, are you not a Death Eater Draco?"
"Because I don't believe that what they are doing is right. They preach about Pureblood supremacy, but they follow a man who is a half-blood. It smacks of hypocrisy."
"So, you believe that purebloods are supreme?"
"No, some of the most disturbing people I've ever met are purebloods." Draco said emphatically, "I don't think that parentage or ancestry has anything to do with a persons worth."
"But you spent your days at Hogwarts calling Hermione 'mudblood' and making her feel inferior because she was muggle born, surely you see how it's hard to believe that you think that parentage is not an issue?" Lupin asked.
Draco looked at Lupin with eyes that showed how much he regretted his actions.
"I was a child, a stupid brainwashed child mimicking the words of his father. I said a lot of things in the hopes that he would believe that I believed it. In Slytherin, I was surrounded by spies, not friends, and every little thing I said or did would go straight back to my father." He sighed, "The day that Hermione punched me in the face in third year for laughing about Buckbeak being executed, my father got a letter from someone in Slytherin, probably from Blaise Zabini. He brought me home, beat me to a pulp in front of my mother and then sent me back to school, bleeding and bruised with the warning that 'the mudblood' never best me either physically or academically again." He looked straight at Hermione, "Most of what I said, I said to avoid the wrath of my father. But I apologize, I know I hurt a lot of people and although I can never take it back, know that I am truly sorry."
Ron snorted with contempt.
"Perhaps you have something you wish to ask Draco, Ron?" Moody said harshly from the other side of the room.
"Yeah, I do. How come you always treated me, the twins and Ginny like crap. Weasleys are as much purebloods as the Malfoys, you made our life hell," The tremble in his voice gave away the depth of his hurt at Draco's actions.
Draco looked directly at Ron.
"You really don't know do you?" Draco asked. "You were everything I hated, because you had everything I wanted. My whole life I was told that your family was poor, you had hand me down clothes, second hand books, second rate everything…but then when I met you that first day at Hogwarts, you were happy, in spite of everything you didn't have you were happy. You had Ginny and Fred and George at school with you so you were never alone, and two friends that would lay down their lives for you for the asking." Draco's voice rose. "I had been told that I was superior, that I had everything. Yet when I saw you I knew that I had nothing compared to what you had, and every time I saw you walking past me I was reminded of that."
"But, you're rich Malfoy, you've never had to struggle, don't give me that crap about…:"
"Rich! Ron there is more to wealth than money, and in that regard, you have more than I ever will. I am not a son – I'm an heir. I'm not loved, I'm tolerated and groomed to be a figure head. When I get into trouble, I get a beating, not a lecture. If I have problems, I am to sort them out myself and not bring shame upon my family name." Draco breathed in deeply, his voice trembling even as it rose in volume. "And don't talk to me about struggle, I've been struggling my whole goddamn life, struggling to be seen as something OTHER than Lucius Malfoy's son, against the lunacy my father believed in and struggling against what I knew my fate would one day be." He ran his hand through his hair and looked up at Ron.
"My father gave MY life for Voldemort, not his, mine. I am a commodity to him, nothing more. My so called friends were no better. Did you realise Ron, that my entire time at Hogwarts I had not one single friend. Sure, I had bodyguards and hangers-on, but they were there for what my money could buy them or my name could bring them. I could have dropped dead in front of them and they would have stepped over me to get to the next person."
Malfoy's impassioned speech was hard to ignore, no matter how much Ron wanted to. The unwelcome but familiar memory of Malfoy surrounded by Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson and Zabini at the Slytherin table at Hogwarts came to mind. It had really never occurred to Ron that Malfoy may have been something other than a 'death eater in training', it was something of a shock to hear that he had felt trapped between the dark world he was expected to join and the world he longed to be a part of.
"I cannot change the things I have done; no matter how much I wish I could Ron. The jealous, petty, arrogant child you knew at Hogwarts no longer exists, and all I am asking now is that you allow me to try and make sure that Voldemort is defeated and that no more innocent lives are lost at his or my fathers hands. It's the only reparation I can make for the injury I have inflicted; do you think that you can allow me that?"
Ron merely nodded curtly and looked quickly at Tonks beside him; she smiled back at him with tears in her eyes.
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Moody stood to the side of the sofa that Draco sat on, he had watched the faces of the Order members as Draco had spoken. That he was speaking the truth was now not in question, but his revelations had startled more than one of them and they sat in stunned silence. Everyone from McGonagall to Harry, who sat next to Hermione looked a little shell shocked at Draco's disclosure. Knowing that they should keep on with the questioning, he drew Draco's attention;
"Draco, did you kill Albus Dumbledore?"
"No, I was supposed to, but I couldn't do it."
"Why couldn't you kill him?" Moody asked.
"Because, I didn't believe in what I was doing, Dumbledore was the only person who had ever believed in me." Draco said, his voice becoming thick as the emotion of that night flooded back. "He knew, that night, that I was there to try and kill him. He also knew that I couldn't do it. Even as I stood there with my wand out ready to strike, he offered to help hide me, to protect me…no-one had ever offered to protect me before. Then Snape arrived and Dumbledore was…I should never have disarmed him, he would have at least stood a chance then." A single tear escaped Draco's eye and traveled a silvery line down his pale cheek, the fact that he made no move to brush it away indicated that he had no idea it was there.
Harry watched Malfoy as he spoke about that night on top of the Astronomy tower and he felt Malfoy's pain as keenly as his own. He did not need truth serum to know that Malfoy was telling the truth about that night, he himself had seen the fear, desolation and utter self loathing in Malfoy's eyes when he had faced Dumbledore. He believed that, had the Death Eaters and Snape not come to the top of the tower when they did, that Dumbledore would have lived and Malfoy would have been protected. It was quite possible that Malfoy would have been fighting as part of the Order had things gone differently that night.
"Do you think Snape killed Dumbledore out of hatred?" Moody asked.
Draco looked startled, "No! Snape always respected Dumbledore, no matter what anyone said. The few times that I mouthed off about Dumbledore in front of Snape, he told me to watch my mouth or I'd regret it."
"I had a lot of time to think about that night when I was on the run, and the more I thought about it the stranger it seemed. I remember Snape was agitated after he killed Dumbledore and as we made our way into the Forest he was muttering about the 'impossibly dangerous plan'. I didn't have time to ask him what it was about, he pushed me into a small cavern, put his hand over my mouth to silence me and told me to shut up or we'd both wind up dead. The other Death Eaters had not been far behind us when we ran from Hogwarts, and we waited in the cavern as they crashed through the forest right past our hiding place. I don't think I'd ever been as scared as I was that night, I had failed Voldemort and I knew that he would mark me for death."
"But Dumbledore was dead, why would he care who killed him?" Lupin asked.
"I don't know why exactly, but it was very important to him that I be the one to kill Dumbledore. He warned me that should I fail him, that he would kill my whole family and anyone or anything else I cared about. I asked him what would happen if someone beat me to it…he told me that it was 'in my best interests' to make sure that did not happen."
"So, what happened in the forest?" Harry asked, wanting to find out exactly what Snape had done after killing Dumbledore.
"When the Death Eaters passed us, Snape handed me a small bag of muggle clothing, some food, maps and a huge wad of muggle money that had been hidden under a log in the cavern. He told me where he had hidden a portkey for me nearby and that I should start running and never look back. Naturally, I was surprised; and when I asked him how he knew I would need to get away, he said that a 'wise old man' told him we would need it. He wished me good luck, told me to stay out of wizarding communities and keep to myself until this was over and then he grabbed hold of the other portkey and was gone, it was the last time I ever saw him. It occurred to me later that the 'wise old man' Snape spoke of, was most likely Dumbledore."
Lupin shifted in his chair and took a deep breath, he noticed from the corner of his eye that Fred and Hermione looked at each other meaningfully. He looked at his watch and estimated that they had a further twenty two minutes of truth serum left.
"Draco, you told us you were in the run for almost two years. How did that come to an end, how did you wind up in the dungeons of Malfoy manor with Tonks?"