How They Fell

Chapter Sixteen


School for Draco was utterly disconcerting. He felt like someone had subverted the familiar environment of Hogwarts, leaving him with the constant impression that he had put his foot down on a well-known step, only to fall through air.

Everything he did felt so oddly wrong. He should be behaving in his old manner, but he was unable to do so. He had changed and Hogwarts made this painfully clear to him.

He tried to bury himself in his lessons, but he increasingly felt his concentration slip. His work was falling in standard and he found it hard to motivate himself. He worked with increasing desperation, using it as a means to block out everything else, only to find that it didn’t work. Like everything else it seemed to turn to dust at his fingertips, depressing him still further.

The betrayal of his friends and house left him with nothing to lighten his mood, or draw his attention, even Quidditch was denied him. Apart from that he didn’t miss them, and strangely it was that more than their actions which hurt him. He didn’t really care that he was friendless, it was the position of Leader of Slytherin that he missed. As a Malfoy it was his right, the position had been seized from him and he had done nothing – that was the bit that hurt; his pride. He clearly had never cared for his friends, and they had never cared for him. At the age of seventeen Draco suddenly became aware of how much he had missed in his former life, and it pained him.

However, it was his weekly visits to his father that were most crushing. Draco dreaded them and hated himself for it. Lucius was his father, he was meant to want to visit him, but he didn’t – the meetings were too dreadful for that.

It was now painfully evident that Lucius was suffering from the same problem as the Longbottoms. However, because of his nature his behaviour manifest itself in very different ways. Where the Longbottoms were vacant, tender and caring Lucius was angry, raging and focused, most often on Draco.

For the whole of September Lucius had disowned Draco, insulted and raged at him whenever he realised he was at Hogwarts. Lucius was only able to remember things up to his torture at the hands of Voldemort, nothing after. It had been a continual horror to Draco to watch, time and time again as realisation and anger suffused across his father’s face only to be directed at him.

Thanks to Madam Pomfrey this behaviour had stopped. She had insisted on a private room for Lucius as it was clearly impossible for him to be moved to anywhere else. Although mad, Lucius still needed to protection Hogwarts offered him from Voldemort. They shaped it like his personal bedchamber and moved his furniture from the manor. They decided on the story that while successfully fulfilling the Dark Lords last assignment a spell had backfired on him leaving him very ill. The Dark Lord had ordered him to rest and recover before he would once again join his services as his most trusted death eater.

Draco found these lies disgusting, but he understood their necessity and went along with them. However, they did nothing to counteract his horror of the visits to his father. Though no longer branded a traitor, Draco now returned to his previous role as the lazy, useless son who would disgrace his father and his family in front of the Dark Lord, and due to his difficulties with his school work Draco was finding his father’s words harder and harder to block out.

And so Draco found himself in late November without really knowing, or caring how he got there.

Once again he prepared himself for his weekly visit to his father. He made sure he was perfect in his presentation, hair slicked back in the way his father liked it. Cleanly shaved, clean robes smart and without a wrinkle. He straightened his shoulders and, checking his appearance one last time, walked out of the Heads common room.

With his heart sinking in his chest he made his way over to Lucius’ room above the infirmary. He paused just outside the entrance and took a deep breath, wrapping himself in a protective numbness.

He tapped the vase with his wand muttered the password and entered.

His father was awake, sitting in his chair reading the same book on blood spells that he had been reading for the past two months.

He looked up as Draco came into the room and his eyes narrowed. Draco suppressed a shiver.

“You didn’t knock! Stupid boy, I might have been busy.”

“I am sorry father, I asked the house elf and she assured me that you were not indisposed. I shall go and punish her at once if she was incorrect.”

“No, you may stay.” Said Lucius, lazily waving his son to a seat.

“I hope you are feeling stronger father.”

“Yes I think I am, I shall soon be able to return to our Lord.”

“I hear that he looks forward to that day with eager anticipation.” Lucius huffed, evidently pleased with the subtle compliment. Draco calmed slightly, his father was in one of his better moods.

“And how are your studies progressing?” Draco no longer blanched at this question, it was asked every week and responded with the same answer.

“Severus has taken over my tuition in that respect, sir. He say’s I am an able pupil. We have covered all of the basic curses and are now beginning to move onto the more complex hexes. I find him a hard task master-.”

“It is what you need.”

“Yes sir.”

“And you’re other studies.”

Draco then began to tell his father about all of his schoolwork as he always did before moving on to the formulaic question of what Lucius was reading.

“Where is your mother?” Lucius interrupted. Draco shuddered inwardly. Lucius had never asked this before and Draco had to pause before he could come up with an answer.

“Well?”

“She is doing her best to throw the ministry off your scent. They have doubled their efforts to find you and in your state of illness we were all afraid they would manage to follow you here. She has been playing the whirling socialite at every possibility, but in her spare moments it has been impossible to remove her from your side.”

Lucius huffed again, but with less obvious pleasure. “Well tell her I wish to speak with her.”

“She is…” Draco paused, horrified at what he was going to say. “I think she is visiting the Parkinson’s at the moment, sh-she won’t be back until quite late.”

“That is not good enough!” Draco sensed Lucius’s anger rising. “Go and get her this instant!”

“Father I can’t!” Draco cried out, the numbness was ripped from him with his father’s demand for him to do what he most wanted in the world.

Lucius’ eyes became cold and hard in that was that made Draco’s entire body shrink back, away from him.

“Why?” He hissed. Drawing himself up to his impressive height.

“I – I”

“You? You?” Lucius interrupted with biting sarcasm. “You are a waste of space. Your efforts with your lessons are negligible at best. Tell me son how much time do you spend practicing compared to the amount of time you spend messing about on your broom?”

“I have not ridden my broom for three months sir.” Replied Draco his eyes picking out the pattern on the carpet.

“LIAR!” Hissed Lucius stepping forward and backhanding Draco viciously across the face. Utterly surprised Draco stumbled backwards, clutching his cheek. A small amount of blood trickled from his nose as Draco stared at his father in shock. Lucius had never hit him before.

His father strode away. “You are a liar! You are Lazy! You constantly let down your name! You do not deserve the name Malfoy if you cannot please me better! Now where is your mother?”

“She- she…”

Lucius slapped him again. “PATHETIC!” Lucius seemed more deranged at this moment than Draco had ever seen him.

“She will suffer for this betrayal! Yes I will make her suffer.” He said with a cold clarity, pacing backwards and forwards.

The image of his mother lying dead in the hospital ward flashed in front of his eyes, all because she had followed his father.

“And as for you!” Lucius suddenly turned, glaring at Draco. “You who take her side against me, your father, your name!”

Draco felt himself tremble as he stood.

Then Lucius paused and said calmly but coldly. “I don’t have any words for you. You will improve. You will work. You will do your duty by me, by our lord. Now get out! And don’t come back until I can call you son without shame.”

He then turned his back on Draco.

* * *

Draco stumbled out of the door, shock and horror swirling around his head making it cloudy, making him unable to think.

He wanted to retch. He wanted it all to stop. But his thoughts were interrupted. Someone close by shouted in anger.

Draco swirled around in surprise only to see Harry Potter running away down the corridor.

Potter!

Potter had been outside – listening! For how long? Where was he going? – ‘To tell his friends,’ a nasty voice inside his head insisted.

That seemed to clear his mind. Without another second Draco was racing after Potter.

He followed Potter down corridor after corridor, across what must have been half the castle. Draco was surprised at first that he didn’t head immediately for Gryffindor tower. Instead he was making his way to the second floor.

Draco ran as fast as he could, but, as ever, Potter was faster. The space between them steadily grew, until Draco turned a corner only to find it empty.

Assuming Potter was around the next corner Draco continued, only to find that corridor empty too.

Draco continued running for a while, until it became obvious he had lost his prey. But that would not do, he couldn’t have Potter telling his friends, informing the whole school that Lucius Malfoy was mad and that his son was a disgrace to him. He couldn’t!

Doubling back Draco jogged back to the corridor where he had first lost Potter. It was a short corridor with only three rooms coming off it. He checked them all and found nothing. Hoping that there were no secret passages that Potter knew, he moved on to the next corridor, he searched the rooms there too and he was just about to move on to the next corridor when he heard voices.

They were coming from the girls toilets, the only room he hadn’t looked it, he had reasoned that Potter would rather die than hide in a girl’s loo. Apparently he had been wrong.

Creeping closer to the door Draco could easily make out the low murmur of voices. Granger and the Weasel must be in there too.

He moved even closer, until he was right beside the door, but he still couldn’t make out what the voices were saying. He could hear Potter speak, then there was a pause, he said what must have been a spell, another pause. This lasted for a while, then a gasp, the sounds of frantic movement. Granger was shouting, “Harry, Harry wake up!” Then, “shit he’s not breathing – I can’t find a pulse!”

There was a moment of profound silence. It was cut off by Hermione’s quiet, but determined ‘No.’ followed by, “Quick! Get him to the hospital wing.”

The door was thrown open and Granger and Weasel rushed out, the Weasel clutching an unconscious Potter. They were in such a panic that they didn’t see Draco staring at them.

* * *

He stood there for a long time. The horror he had suffered from his father, the surprise he had felt at seeing Potter and finally the shock that he was dead, all took their toll on Draco.

Eventually his normal thought processes began to function again. For lack of anything else to do he moved into the bathroom and paused.

There was a cauldron filled with a coppery potion sitting in a sink, a broken flask on the floor and a ghost sobbing quietly and wringing her hands.

“Um…what happened?”

The ghost looked up surprised, then proceeded to sob more loudly. “He – he’s deeeead!” She wailed, hiccupping occasionally.

“Yes, but how?”

The ghost cried even more loudly and ignored him.

“It’s very important, I have to find out how he died!” Draco found himself saying.

Myrtle hiccupped once more and clamed down. “Oh…”

“Do you know what the potion does?”

She shook her head. “I was in my toilet ignoring everything. (Hiccup) Then I heard them getting excited so I stuck my head out to see what was going on, and…and – I saw Harry. He – he, he said a spell (hiccup) and – and drank the potion. Then after a while he, he collapsed…deeeead!” She started crying again.

“What was the spell?” Draco demanded. “Tell me now!”

“He- he said ‘clueo idemere,’ and…you…shouldn’t be so ruuudee!” she wailed again before diving back wards into a cubicle, and judging from the splash, down her toilet.

Draco was taking a while to understand everything.

Harry Potter dead.

Draco knew he should feel pleased. That his old self would be ecstatic. But if Harry Potter was dead then the Dark Lord would be happy, and the wizarding world’s best hope for his defeat would be gone.

The Dark Lord would want to complete his revenge against his father. He would be killed as a traitor.

Draco shuddered and looked at the potion. He wondered what it did. Few potions were this bright a colour and even fewer were used in conjunction with spells. Whatever it was must be powerful and apparently deadly.

Draco moved closer to the potion. Thinking absently that he should take a sample so that he could test it he took a spare flask that was standing next to the cauldron, filled it, corked it and put it in his pocket.

He took another look around the room, it was impossible to tell that anyone had been there.

Draco surreptitiously left the bathroom and made his way carefully to his room.

It was odd that it looked exactly the same as when he had left, he felt as though it should have changed.

Draco felt tiredness overtake him. Lying down on his bed he realised that he was probably suffering from shock. However, the realisation was short lived as he promptly fell asleep.

* * *

Draco woke hours later when he tried to roll over onto his other side, for some reason his head hurt.

Draco sat up suddenly, making his head spin. He felt like he was hung over. It was the middle of the night, and he was still dressed, Draco’s brain tried to make sense of it all and failed.

He lurched, unsteadily to his feat and his head spun again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement and he quickly turned round, only to find himself looking into his mirror.

He studied himself dispassionately. His clothes were rumpled and creased from running and sleep. His hair was in disarray. He had blood on the front of his robes and on top of his upper lip. His cheek was red and swollen. His eyes had bags underneath them and were puffy with sleep.

Taking a step closer to the mirror, Draco gentle stroked his cheek and winced. It hurt. The events of the evening began to come back to him, his eyes closed in pain as he remembered.

His father had hit him.

He had called his mother disloyal when it was his fault she died.

Draco felt himself begin to tremble as the after effects of shock started. Again he felt confusion fill him.

He looked awful. Not that it mattered anymore…If his father saw him now he would call him a disgrace, but he had already done that. He had hit him and Harry Potter was dead. He was dead, or he was as soon as the Dark Lord remembered him. His mother was dead.

Desperation filled Draco as that voice started in his head again.

‘Half an hour.’

Draco almost reeled from the horror of that thought. It had replayed itself again and again in his head over the passed couple of months, but now it contained new terror.

Draco felt senseless under the build up of emotion. His mind seemed to shut down. It felt as though it was suspended in space, unable to feel or think.

He put his hands by his side and felt an odd echo of surprise at the funny bulge there. He roughly pushed his hand into his pocket, and clumsily drew out a flask.

The words ‘clueo idemere’ came to his mind. He recognised that spell from somewhere. Raising his wand he cast it. He felt a small bolt of satisfaction, that was what the spell did, it showed him his essence.

But what did the potion do? He wondered. A small part of his brain seemed to be trying to stop him, but he ignored it, if it came back then the pleasant mindlessness would go away.

He raised the flask and drank.