Chapter 7 - Not So Smooth Sailing

"Hello Father," Draco replied reluctantly as he stepped out of the way so that Lucius could enter the Manor. Lucius sauntered in through the doorway and stopped in the middle of the foyer. He scanned the room with his cold grey eyes with a look of disapproval.

"I see that not much has changed since I left except that some of my artifacts and paintings are missing," he announced. "Why would that be? Eh, Draco?"

Draco struggled to gulp down a hard lump of anxiety in his throat before being able to answer his father. "Well you see, the Aurors -, " he started.

"What?" Lucius hissed. "You mean to say that those damn Aurors came into my Manor and took my possessions? Those barbarians!" He angrily exclaimed. "They had NO right!"

Narcissa walked up to her husband to try to reason with him. "Darling, there was nothing that we could do. We were powerless to stop them," she said softly as she put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

However, Lucius was not so easily swayed. "Powerless? POWERLESS? Draco here could have stopped them! He's a bloody Death Eater! A DEATH EATER!" He cried out in blind rage.

"Father, there were too many of them. We would have been killed," Draco piped up, trying to get his father to see reason. 'And besides, I was a pathetic excuse for a Death Eater.' He thought.

With that said, Lucius seemed to calm down a bit. "Did they at least leave my armchair?" He asked, anger still tinged his voice.

"Yes Dear, it is still sitting by the hearth. It is as you left it," Narcissa answered.

Lucius nodded his head and walked off into the sitting room. A loud sigh of relief was heard in the foyer, which indicated that Lucius had found that was Narcissa had said about the armchair was true. Draco, who was shaken by the sudden outburst that his father had, looked over to where his mother was standing. She too looked rattled by Lucius' startling outpouring of anger. Draco quietly walked over to his mother and embraced her. Clearly, they were in for a long haul with Lucius.

"Draco, fetch me a goblet of Firewhiskey, will you?" Lucius called out from the sitting room.

Draco sighed and released his mother from their short embrace. "Yes Father, I'll only be a minute," he replied as he walked off towards the kitchen. Draco opened the kitchen door and stepped inside. He looked around the room, but Dottie was nowhere to be found. "Dottie? Are you in here?" He whispered. After he had spoken, Draco heard some light scuffling and turned to see that the pantry door had opened a crack.

"Master Draco? Is that you?" A small voice asked quietly.

"Yes Dottie, it's me," Draco replied as he walked towards the pantry.

"Oh thanks goodness. I was afraid that it would be Master Lucius. I heard some terrible shoutings coming from outside. Rather scary, isn't he?" Dottie squeaked.

"Yes, he is quite frightening, which is why we must make sure that he will never know that you are here. Anyways, do you know where the Firewhiskey is? My father has requested that I bring him some," Draco said. Dottie nodded and went back inside the pantry. After a few minutes, she emerged with a bottle.

"Here you are Master Draco," she said as she held up the bottle to him. "Can I go back into hidings now? I certainly don't want to be meetings Master Lucius."

"Thank you very much Dottie. And yes, you may go back," Draco said smiling as he took the bottle from the little house-elf. Dottie curtseyed and walked back into the pantry, closing the door behind her. Draco went over to the glassware cabinet that was beside the pantry door and pulled a goblet from its shelves before heading back out of the kitchen. When Lucius saw Draco enter the room with the bottle of Firewhiskey and the goblet in hand, he gestured for him to come over. Draco briskly walked over to his father and set down the goblet on the small claw-foot side table that was next to the armchair. Lucius motioned for Draco to pour the Firewhiskey for him, and Draco did as he was told. Lucius must have not felt a need to thank his son as he wordlessly picked up the goblet and took a sip of its contents.

"Ah. There is nothing quite like Firewhiskey after being deprived of it for nineteen years. Wouldn't you say, Draco?" Lucius asked.

"I'm sorry, Father. I wouldn't know," Draco said as he shook his head slightly.

"That's right. You wouldn't know, now would you?" Lucius' grip on the goblet tightened. "You weren't the one that was thrown into prison when you were the one that so rightfully deserved it!" He shouted in rage as he stood up from the chair. Draco took a cautious step back as his father continued to berate him. "I was a faithful servant of the Dark Lord for years and this is what I deserve? NINETEEN YEARS IN THAT BLOODY HELL OF A PRISON? You, on the other hand, were an atrocious Death Eater. I was ashamed to call you my son! You couldn't even kill a bloody old man! You are nothing! You are weak!" Lucius bellowed furiously. The goblet of Firewhiskey fell from Lucius' grip and fell to the floor with a clatter, spilling the burning alcoholic drink all over the ancient Malfoy family rug.

Draco could hardly believe what he was hearing. This here was stone cold proof that Azkaban had actually driven his father completely bonkers. He had been transformed into a total nutter; not that he wasn't already one before. Hearing Lucius shouting again, Narcissa briskly walked into the sitting room and stood in the middle of the room in complete shock. She couldn't believe the words that were coming out of her husband's mouth. Lucius had been a bit harsh to Draco while he was a child, but to her knowledge it had never been anything like this.

"So tell me Draco, what have you been doing these past nineteen years? Have you been hiding under a rock like your usual feeble self, or have you actually done something with your life?" Lucius pressed. Draco wrestled with the notion that perhaps lying to his father would be best, but then realized that would probably make everything worse. As much as he didn't want to respond, Draco knew that he had to.

"Well Father, actually, I have done something with my life," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "I have a job working at the Ministry of Magic in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I also have a beautiful wife named Astoria and an amazing son named Scorpius," Draco beamed proudly. Suddenly, Lucius started laughing raucously, which forced him to sit back down in his armchair.

"So I see you have a family now? Isn't that nice. By the way, I hope you know that your marriage to Astoria Greengrass was completely my doing?" Lucius sneered. Draco seemed to be taken aback by what Lucius had just said.

"No, that's not true. We met when her sister, Daphne, brought her along on a chance visit to me and Mother after you left. It was completely by chance," Draco asserted,

"No, no, no, my boy. Did you actually believe that you just so happened to meet a pure-blooded witch by chance? By sheer dumb luck? I arranged with Mr. Greengrass to have Daphne introduce Astoria to you. I knew that you would fall in love with her. In fact, it was her mission to make you fall in love with her so that our pure-blood family lines could continue. Were you actually naïve enough to think that I would leave you to your own devices in my absence? Did you think that I would let you marry a half-blood, or even worse, a Mudblood?" Lucius put some extra emphasis on 'Mudblood' as if it was supposed to drive a point home for Draco.

"That's not true! Astoria loves me and would have never done that to me! You're mad!" Draco exclaimed in disbelief. He was so close to just fuming on out of the room, but tried to keep his head about him. Lucius again started cackling uncontrollably.

"That's not all my boy. That trollop only married you for our money and for our family name! She doesn't love you and never has!" He scoffed.

That was the breaking point for Draco. He turned on his heel and raged out of the room. He didn't even take a moment to say goodbye to his mother.

"YOU'RE A RIGHT FOUL BLOODY GIT, YOU OLD BARMY BASTARD!" Draco roared bellicosely as he threw open the front door and violently slammed it shut behind him. He quickly Apparated back to his home with a loud resounding crack.

Once he had arrived in his living room, he started shouting for Astoria to come to talk to him about the nonsense that his father had been spewing, but then realized that she was at work and was not due back home until supper time. It was not even time for lunch yet. Draco let loose a cry of despair and threw himself on the couch. It took him a few moments to realize that he had been sobbing profusely. Everything had gone so wrong all too rapidly.