How They Fell

Chapter Eleven


The next few days were full of confusion for Draco. He was taken to a small room were he would stay over the holidays, he was talked to by Snape, he visited his unconscious father and he mourned his mother.

Narcissa’s funeral was a very quiet affair. Draco felt his heavy heart sink with his mothers body into the grave and as he looked around the graveyard sorrow once again welled up inside him. There were so few there to mourn her. Her close friends were absent as they were the wives of other death eaters, she had no immediate family and even his father was absent.

Draco felt very much alone standing by the grave, as he looked about him he realised that none of his family or friends were present. There was only Snape.

For the first time he could remember Draco longed for his father. Even if he disliked him, he was still the only true family he had left and Draco knew that just seeing his father conscious and well would give him strength.

Draco and Severus left the graveyard and returned to Hogwarts. Snape escorted Draco to his rooms, did his best to comfort him and then left him to his sorrow.

* * *

It was another week before Lucius regained consciousness and Draco was fittingly by his side as he did.

He heard a sharp in take of breath and looked around to see his father’s eyes open, looking up at the ceiling.

Relief filled him as he stood, stepping towards the bed.

“Father?” Lucius turned his head and looked up at his son.

“Draco.” There was a brief smile then, “I hope you have been working hard to best please our Lord?”

Icy fingers clutched at Draco’s throat as he looked at his father.

“Sir…I.” But he was interrupted as Madam Pomfrey came to see what the noise was.

She then proceeded to cast charm after charm checking his health. Draco sat back thinking, ‘was it possible that his father didn’t remember? That he didn’t know that his wife was dead and that he had been betrayed by the thing he had worked hardest for?’

“If I might be permitted to ask, Draco, why am I here?” His father’s voice was filled with cold, sarcastic anger as he addressed him.

Madam Pomfrey shot him a concerned look.

Draco spoke quietly and calmly trying to reign in his panic. “I am sorry father, it was the only thing I could do after the attack.”

“LIAR!” Hissed Lucius, his voice full of poison, as his fist went crashing down on a medical tray. Draco gasped, confusion filling him.

“You! You have betrayed me!”

It fell like a physical blow upon Draco’s hopeful and exposed soul. Draco stood completely still, too shocked and horrified to restrain Lucius who was now struggling to leave the bed, reaching violently for his son.

It was Madam Pomfrey who moved first. Lucius was hit by a stupefy and fell backwards across the bed, with another spell he was strapped down. She then moved towards Draco placing her hands on his shoulders.

“Mr Malfoy.” There was no reaction, she shook him a bit then tried again, louder. “Mr Malfoy.”

Draco looked up at her, a confused welter of emotions evident on his face. Poppy made him sit down beside his father, pulled up a chair for herself and brewed some strong sweet tea.

“Mr Malfoy it is usual for people who have suffered trauma to be,” she paused briefly, carefully choosing her words, “confused and alarmed. It will take a while for him to stabilise, but after that he should be fine. Such outbursts as this are not unusual and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.”

Draco paused for a moment, and it was clear to Poppy that he was very shaken.

“Are you sure that he’s ok?” Asked Draco uncertainly.

“I will run a few tests in order to be absolutely positive, but I haven’t found anything which would give me any doubts about your father’s long term health.” She paused, looking appraisingly at Draco. “Now, its getting on and dinner is nearly ready.” Draco stood up and moved to the door. “And Draco, don’t take what he said seriously, he didn’t mean in.”

Draco nodded once and left the room, his heart still pounding in his chest. He had been waiting for his father to wake up, depending on it for strength, and it had left him feeling emptier than before.

Draco shook his head fiercely, Madam Pomfrey had told him it would be fine. It was a common occurrence. His father didn’t mean it. But try as he might he just couldn’t remove the cold horror that had settled itself inside him.

* * *

It was another three day’s before Lucius woke up again, with exactly the same results as the first time, but this time Draco wasn’t present. It then happened twice more and the outbursts were as violent as ever. Unfortunately on the fourth occasion Draco was present again.

When his father had opened his eyes Draco had stepped forward tentatively.

“It is good to see you awake father.” Lucius turned his head to regard his son.

“Ah, Draco! I hope your studies are improving.” Draco blinked in surprise.

“Ah – Yes father, I believe I am making progress.”

“You believe – you believe?” Questioned Lucius, cold sarcasm biting through every word. “What proof of success do you have?”

Draco paused again, unsure of how to continue. “I – I,” then remembering his interview with Dumbledore, continued hopefully. “I have been made head boy father.”

Lucius grunted, waving aside Draco’s achievement. “No more than what I expect. And what of your other studies? You had better have improved in them, I will not be embarrassed in front of my master because of your slothful nature.”

Draco felt the prickling of tears forming in his eyes during his father’s questions. How? How could he so easily brush aside his one triumph? How was it possible? Did his father really have so little pride and affection for him?

Draco’s thoughts were abruptly halted when his father made to sit up. There was a dreadful pause that seemed to resound inside him, as his father noted the restraints and then looked around the room.

“Hog-?…WHAT” And then the cold hiss that Draco was dreading.

“TRAITOR! …Leave!” Lucius’ face was contorted into a look of the deepest loathing, his eyes looked mad and he spat as he spoke. “Leave me now! Don’t think of returning! I hereby strip you of your name, status and any other connection that you may have with me...You mean nothing – you are nothing! Go! Beg! Starve! Die! I don’t care! ...LEAVE! - DAMN YOU, LEAVE!”

Since then Draco had not visited his father.

* * *

Madam Pomfrey was growing concerned. She had run all of the tests she could and there was nothing that pointed to emotional damage. It was only as she liberally dosed Lucius with a calming potion that she noticed it, a slight shaking.

It sent her eyebrows up in surprise. She knew that use of the Cruciatus curse left its victims trembling, and Lucius had been shaking when she had first treated him. But the after effects of the curse should have worn out by now…unless.

Trying to hide her fear she went and knocked on the portrait to Draco’s room.

Draco opened the door and looked surprised, then nervous as he saw the school nurse. However he politely invited her inside and gestured for her to sit down. His respect for the matron had increased massively over the last two weeks. God knows she had no reason to like his parents, yet she had treated them with care, and in the case of his father still did. For that she had his gratitude.

“Mr Malfoy, I came because I wanted to ask you some questions. I know you have already been…interrogated, by Albus and Severus, but I have a few questions of my own I would like to ask, they relate to your father.”

“Of course, ask anything.” Madam Pomfrey smiled slightly, it was a nice change for a Malfoy to be, so…well, pleasant! Her smile died, however, as she considered the best way to phrase her questions.

“When was the last time you heard from your father, before...?”

Draco considered. “We weren’t really communicating, unless you count the small messages he sent to me constantly.” Madam Pomfrey looked interested. “He, um, he wanted me to learn some…things, so he would send me instructions through a Vernage Complicite charm. My guess would be that he reset it every week.” Madam Pomfrey nodded.

“Did the spell ever stop?” She asked fearing the answer.

Draco nodded. “It stopped the day,” he paused and spoke in a lower tone, “the day before I found them. So that would mean that it was eight days since he had last thought to replace the charm.”

Poppy shuddered, “so it is possible that he was being held by those who did this for all that time?” She asked.

Draco considered, wincing slightly. “Yes…its possible, but I don’t think that was the case. I…I.” He shot the nurse a look, considering whether or not to totally expose his family. Although it didn’t really make very much of a difference. “I know he was…involved in something important for his master at the time; he failed, the Dark Lord was displeased and so…” Draco paused, desperately trying to be detached, to remove himself, and what he was saying from the emotion he felt inside him. “But he would have been very busy for a couple of day’s, hence why he didn’t replace the charms.”

“How many days?”

“Two? Three?”

“So, he would have been held for five or six day’s?”

“Yes.” Whispered Draco

“Its not enough,” murmured Poppy to herself.

“What!” Questioned Draco sharply.

Madam Pomfrey paused, aware she had just spoken allowed. “I, - never mind. What was your father like before? The last time you saw him, how did he behave?”

“More crazy and fanatical than ever.” Said Draco, half joking. But he looked up suddenly at the look on Madam Pomfrey’s face. “What is it? What does this mean?”

“I…I.” She paused, closed her eyes briefly, took a breath of air and continued. “If he was under the control of the Dark Lord for six days then it is likely that he was tortured long before your mother was brought.”

Draco went cold, he hadn’t thought of this.

“When you brought him in I noticed the trembling which indicates prolonged use of the Cruciatus curse…Unfortunately, he is still shaking slightly which suggests that my suspicions about a longer period of…suffering, are correct. However, that alone wouldn’t be enough to explain his recent behaviour. But if he was already in a state of severe mental neurosis, and then if you add extended exposure to Cruciatus…” But here she was interrupted by a gasp from Draco. His face had taken an almost green tinge, his hands clutched tightly to the arm of the chair as he croaked.

“The Longbottom’s.”

Madam Pomfrey nodded sadly. “Yes Mr Malfoy, I’m afraid that may be possible. I will do all that I can to ensure that it is not the case…but, I should warn you that there may be little I can do to reverse the damage. I am so sorry Mr Malfoy.”

Draco just stared straight in front of him.

He could feel the empty nothingness open up in his chest again, he gasped for breath trying to contain it. This could be happening, this just couldn’t. Everything he had was being stripped away from him. He felt utterly lost and alone.

He closed his eyes, trying to shut it out, trying to contain the nothingness, trying to cope.

Madam Pomfrey got up slowly, squeezed the young man’s shoulder gently saying, “I’ll leave you now…I am sorry,” before leaving him.