Chapter 75 - Hatstall
Draco looked at the letter from Professor Dunkel one last time, and then set it down on top of his work documents, to look out of his window. For a moment he let himself be calmed by the view of several clouds passing by at a leisure pace.
He thought he had taught his son the first rule of Slytherin: Don't get caught.
A lesson he had learned the hard way, that first year at Hogwarts, when he went to Professor McGonagall to out Potters little nightly trip. Just remembering the night in the Forbidden Forest made him shudder. To think that his son hadn't introverted the most basic rule puzzled him.
The Professor hadn't made it apparent what had happened prior to his sons rather stupid stunt. The sad thing was, Draco knew that his son was cunning enough to realise his revenges sneakily and get away with them. Someone had riled him up enough, for his temper to overwhelmed him, and make him act without thinking.
Truly, not a very Slytherin move, but then again, Scorpius had been a hatstall after all. His son never told him why, simply got defensive when he probed for the reason why. Sometimes he wondered if their family's legacy boxed Scorpius in. That the Potter boy wasn't involved for once sat ill Draco too, normally Albus held Scorpius back from such rash decisions.
His gut told him, that something bad had happened, but didn't know what, and neither he wasn't in a position to help. His family still got shunned for their participation in the second Wizarding War, the name Malfoy far from being cleaned, and his words held no weight. He had to figure out what was going on, and what girl Albus Potter was involved with. He needed Potters leverage to protect his son, so he had to fulfil his part of the deal.
Just thinking about Potter made him clench his hand. The man who could do no wrong in the public eye, while he couldn't right a wrong his own son was affected by. Sometimes Draco felt sorry for Albus, during the moments he hated Potter the most, while at other times he envied the boy who lived. Not for his prestige or fame, simply for the fact that one small sentence at the right time could mend problems, wherein Draco had to work hard, just to end up where he started, at an impasse.
The depiction of opinions as truths, without undergirding facts, was how the war started in the first place. The Dark Lord had winded them up to hate Muggleborns and Muggles as lesser, while he was a Half-blood himself, and Draco's parents had played right into his hands by raising him to believe in the biased values they had. He tried to keep their influence on Scorpius as minor as he could concerning this matter, and he knew Astoria had agreed with him.
Now a new generation grew up, but the problems only shifted from one group to another. Albus and Scorpius should not have to deal with the hurt feelings of their fathers over their school time rivalries. Potter would just have to shake his head once at the absurdity of the statement that Scorpius could be the Dark Lords son, and openly dismiss it, to kill most of the rumours, but he never answered any questions surrounding his son befriending the heir of Voldemort, therefor fuelling the rumours further.
He wished Granger hadn't placed herself in such a predicament with the press, else he could have used her standing to help his family. As it was, she was an enigma he wanted to figure out for himself, and he had a pressing matter to talk about with her, which he would use to get a deeper insight into her intellectual world.
AN: Some of you may have noticed that all my Chapters since New Year are unbetaed and at odd times. My lovely beta Eva wanted to be back from a family holiday the week after Epiphany. I haven't heard from her and I'm absolutly worried. She kept me in line because we had a schedule. I want to apologise for the irregular posting and hope the two of us will be back soon with Sunday posts, but for now I miss her input on certain parts of my story dearly and just write as it comes to me. Which means there are some points I need to reread because I don't write chronological and I fear I lost the golden thread because I split it up to many times. Something is niggling me at the back of my head, and I can't figure out just what it is. To think that I got a notebook full of facts to prevent that from happening, but obviously missed some entries...