Title: You Break My Heart
Characters/Pairings: Draco Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy

Challenge/Forum - QLFC Season 5 Round 8 (Beater 2, Ballycastle Bats)
Prompt: Draco realizes his family's views are not something he agrees with.
Opt-Prompts: (word) elegant, (dialogue) "You're too old for this world."

Challenge/Forum - HPFC Friends Challenge
Prompt: TOW The Holiday Armadillo (7.10) - Write about a father/son relationship.

World: Post-Hogwarts (canon-ish)
Word Count: 1,244
(Fabulous) Betas: thompson

A/N: This is dedicated to NERC, Keeper for the Falmouth Falcons for QFLC Season 5, whose head canon is the inspiration for this story.

Lucius Malfoy was dying.

That was the short of it. The long of it was that Lucius Malfoy had spent the last year wasting away in Malfoy Manor, increasingly confined to bedrest, coughing up blood and outdated pure-blood ideology. Though he had never been a particularly pleasant man in life, Lucius was taking his odiousness to new heights as he approached death.

Even Narcissa was loathe to be around him anymore. She preferred to spend her time cuddling her grandson, Scorpius.

Draco didn't blame her one bit; the small child who was just learning to walk and who had started pointing to him and saying 'da da' was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and the best thing he'd ever done. Draco often spent hours watching his son toddle around the manor, clap at his nanny elf, and grin at Astoria. For Scorpius, the world was a place of wonder-a place of continual awe. He was entranced by everything and nothing, his little brain taking in all that was around him and learning to make sense of the world.

Draco hoped Scorpius would be more observant about the world than he had been as a child. And then again, perhaps that would not be an issue; Draco had sworn to Astoria when they married that any children they had would grow up very differently than he had. He hoped he could raise his son to see the world for what it was, not for a bigoted concept of what the world ought to be.

Despite his childhood aspirations, Draco refused to become his father.

Still, family was family, so Draco steeled himself and opened the door to Lucius's suite.

"Father?" he called, scanning the sitting room for the old wizard.

He found Lucius seated on an emerald wingback, looking out onto the grounds of Malfoy Manor. Even in ill health, Lucius Malfoy made sure to look the picture-perfect pureblood: long hair brushed out and tied neatly back, elegant day robes suitable for receiving guests, shoulders as straight as he could manage, given his infirmity, and the ever-present mask of Slytherin impassivity.

Lucius's face changed into a glower, however, when he turned to face his son.

"If you're going to try to bring that so-called Medi-witch in for another check-up, don't bother. I won't receive her." He turned back to the window, waves of haughtiness emanating from him.

Draco breathed deep and fought not to roll his eyes. "Father, we've been over this. Healer Frobisher is the leading expert on your condition. Her treatments have kept you alive this long. You didn't have any issues with her until you discovered her blood status."

Lucius scoffed. "No issues? How about a gross misdiagnosis? I am not suffering from some Muggle disease. Your expert is an imbecile."

"Fine," sighed Draco. Healer Frobisher had commented to the young wizard that his father's days were numbered—it would be weeks now, not months. Even with consistent treatments, Lucius wouldn't see the end of the year. It wasn't worth the fight, not anymore—not when they had such little time left.

But before Draco could leave, he heard his father hiss behind him, "I never thought I'd live to see the day when my own son was a blood-traitor. Better I die than witness the dishonor you've brought on our house."

Draco froze and desperately tried to check his rising anger and resentment.

But his father, oblivious to his son's outrage, continued. "You break my heart, traipsing through the halls of your ancestors with mudbloods, consorting with half-bloods and creatures." Lucius spit in the general direction of his son. "You're a disappointment."

"I'm a disappoint?" Draco turned, fury flashing in his eyes. "I'm a disappointment? What about you, Father? You've failed this family. You've failed me! You offered me up to a madman who branded me like cattle and blackmailed me to murder for him!"

Lucius sneered. "Speaking of failure…"

"No." Draco held up his hand. "I will not listen to this. The Death Eaters lost, Father. More than that, they were wrong. Blood status has nothing to do with magical power, and it never has. The Dark Lord used your bigotry to manipulate you. He plundered the Malfoy vaults and left our family seat with so much ambient Dark Magic that I had to hire the Goblin Horde to cleanse it!

"I think as soon as I stepped foot on the Hogwarts Express first year I realized something was wrong. Vince and Greg were pure-bloods, but they barely had enough magic to function. They were idiots to boot; did you know Vince couldn't even read? All those years of private tutoring, and he couldn't even understand our first year textbook.

"And then there was this boy—this half-blood—who could outfly me and killed a Basilisk and won the Triwizard Tournament. And there was his best friend, a Muggle-born, who never met a spell she couldn't do and radiated magical power. In another life, we would have been friends, but instead I hated them. I thought I hated them because they were beneath me, but really I hated them because they made me question everything I knew. Everything you told me."

"They are beneath you, Draco," Lucius cried. "They're tainted! You're a member of the Sacred 28—a Malfoy! You are the best of the best, even if you are a fool!"

"But you know what really forced me to see your bigotry for what it was?" asked Draco, his voice low and deceptively calm. "When I woke up fifth year, and my father had been thrown in prison. You and your friends—all pure-bloods, all grown, war-hardened wizards—were defeated by children. There were twice as many of you, and you still fell to them."

"The Order…"

"And the worst part? The worst part was that by the time I realized you were wrong, that monster was already living here, threatening Mother. You lied to me, and then your actions forced me to do the worst thing I've ever done."

Draco hauled up the left sleeve of his shirt, baring the Dark Mark for his father. "This is a stain that will stay on our family for generations, Lucius. Scorpius, and any other children I have, will bear the burden of my disgrace. My shame."

"Scorpius is a Malfoy! A pure-blood! He has nothing to be ashamed of. He is a king among wizards!"

Draco shook his head. "You're too old for this world, Father. Too old, too backwards, too narrow-minded. And I'm too tired to deal with it anymore."

Draco opened the door, his father sputtering behind him in a rare case of behavior unbecoming of a Malfoy.

"Healer Frobisher has said you won't see the end of the month without treatment, but I will send her away and tell her not to come again, if that's what you truly want." Lucius scoffed and muttered something under his breath—'mudblood snake oil' was one of the phrases Draco caught.

Emotionally exhausted, Draco turned back to his father one last time. "This weekend is Scorpius's birthday. We will have guests, including his Muggle-born godmother." Lucius sneered. "You are, of course, welcome to join the festivities, but if you cannot behave, Father, I swear that will be the last time you ever see your grandson."

And Draco closed the door on his father, willing away the tears in his eyes for a man he wasn't sure he ever truly loved but who broke his heart nonetheless.