The Slytherin Redemption: Now Complete

This is the next story in the series.


Penance

Chapter 1

Draco Malfoy sat across from the Man-Who-Killed-Voldemort a humbled creature. Harry noted with some interest his disheveled Muggle clothes, his drawn face, and the apparent humility in his downcast eyes and slumped shoulders. Eight years after the war, and after six years of incarceration in Azkaban and Malfoy wanted to speak to him surprisingly. Harry adjusted his Auror robes as the noise of the Muggle pub swirled around them. An inane song began playing in the background. “Why did you want to see me, Malfoy?”

Draco's bleak, grey, gaze darted to his face, then returned to the scarred table. “I need a godfather for my son, and since I lack any friends, I thought I'd ask you.”

Harry felt pinned to the spot in which he sat. “No.”

Malfoy seemed to fold in on himself. A bright tear slipped from his eye and landed with a splash on his clenched fist. Harry's gaze traveled up the other man's arm, noting the scars along the veins, the faded Dark Mark. Dammit, he still suffered from his need to save people. “I misspoke. I meant, I need to know more before I make the decision. And of course, I'll have to talk to my wife.”

“I thought as much.” The former Slytherin git withdrew a thick manila envelope from the seat beside him. “This should explain everything.”

Harry took it reluctantly. A woman approached, her hair a wild combination of colours. Harry looked away from her as Tonks' face replaced the interloper's. She sat next to Malfoy, her voice hushed. “Drake, how's Tish?”

Draco flinched. “The same, Liz.”

“Oh, thank God for small favors.” She stood. “I've got to get back to work. I'll be 'round tonight to spell you so you can get some rest.”

Harry watched the woman walk away. “I thought you said you didn't have any friends.”

“My son's a wizard. I don't have any friends from our world.” He shrugged. “If Snape were alive, I'd have asked him. He would've appreciated the irony.”

“So, I take it you're married to a Muggle?” Harry asked gently, taking great care to stifle the surprise he felt.

“Not married, no.” Draco smirked. “She wouldn't have me, not when... Just read what I've written. I'll be here on Friday at the same time. Let me know what you decide.”

“Can't I just Floo you?” Harry asked, his Fridays were always busy with staff meetings and the like.

“I'm not connected. I don't do magic anymore.” Draco stood, his lean frame silhouetted against the glare of the neon lights shining from the bar. “I've got to get back. My sitter won't be able to stay past one.”

Harry watched the man walk out the door. He gathered the parcel and stuck it absently in his robes. He'd read it later, if only to understand why the git was no longer a wizard.

&*&*&

Harry Floo'ed home that night to be greeted enthusiastically by his wife. Ginny in her second trimester of pregnancy was gorgeous. He rubbed her slight bulge. “How's my boy?”

“Fine, if you hadn't already named him.” She pulled a rueful face. “Are you sure about Albus Severus? He's going to think we hate him.”

She nuzzled his neck, and Harry stifled a groan of pleasure. She said, her smile evident in her tone, “James is at Ron and Hermione's.”

He shrugged off his robes, which fell with a thunk to the floor. Ginny shifted her gaze to the offending article. “What have you got in there, some of Hagrid's rock cakes?”

“It's nothing.” He wasn't a man to be deterred from his mission. He kissed her throat, eliciting a soft gurgle. “I had a meeting with Draco Malfoy today. He gave me something to read.”

“Malfoy?” His warm and willing wife stepped back from him. “That's a name I haven't heard in years. He didn't hex you did he?”

Harry frowned, then began loosening his tie and unbuttoning his collar. “No. I think he's in trouble. He asked me to do something for him.”

Ginny was leading him to their bedroom. “What's new with him being in trouble?”

Harry halted. “Not that kind of trouble. I think... I need to read what he wrote. He said it would explain everything. It has something to do with a woman he's involved with.”

Ginny shook her head. “Read it then. After we have our date.”

Harry grinned. “I love my wife.”


&*&*&

Harry shifted through the unbound papers. His sharp, green eyes scanned the words. The document was obviously typed on a computer and single-spaced. Malfoy seemed to have adjusted to his changed circumstances admirably. Harry rubbed his eyes underneath the glasses he still wore, his signature look, according to his wife. He supposed he would just have to start at the beginning. He lifted the first page and began to read.

&*&*&

To my son, Scorpius, this is my history. The parts you'll need to know when you no longer have your mother and me to watch over you. I hope that your godparents will teach you well. I hope they'll not tell you what an evil bastard I've been most of my life. If they do, I've left this letter to let you know that, above all things, I loved you and I loved your mother. You were both my salvation.

I also want you to know that I made a conscious effort to be more than the prejudiced, spoiled son of a pureblood so that I could honour a man whose valour saved me and your mother. His name was Severus Snape and he was the most courageous man I have ever known.

I was born into privilege, to a family whose prejudices were deeply ingrained. I was taught to hate all things not of our world. Yes, by now I'm sure you're aware of your wizarding heritage.

I was a pureblood prat. My father, your grandfather, was Lucius Malfoy, a Death Eater and utter bastard to all but myself and my mother, Narcissa. They, I suppose, are still confined to Azkaban. After the war they were given life sentences, and the Ministry of Magic is probably still disinclined to commute the terms of their imprisonment. I can't say as I blame the Ministry. What we all did in the name of purity was beyond disgusting. But, I digress. I am writing to tell you my story, not give you a history of the most recent conflict to shake the wizarding world.

I first saw your mother at Malfoy Manor. She was shackled by a painful binding spell cast by Bellatrix Lestrange, my mother's sister. I had earlier been out on a Muggle raid, terrorizing people I had been taught were inferior. When I entered the room that contained your mother, I was drawn to her as I had been no other woman. She was beautiful in her disarray and defiant in the face of the horrors that my loving Aunt was beginning to inflict upon her soft flesh. Bellatrix was known for her mad brutality and her love of domination. She was as evil and as insane as the mad creature we all followed (however reluctantly) and a little more frightening, to me anyway.

She turned to me, her expression gloating. “Nephew, take over for me. Finish her off. I'm being summoned.”

I hadn't participated in torture before. I had, as I indicated before, been on raids, but I had always hung back casting useless spells if spotted. I wasn't depraved enough to desire what my Aunt and the others considered sport. Snape was behind me, his cold, sneering presence a strange comfort. He waited as I tried to cast the first spell and failed. Your mother spat at me, and I cast again and again. Nothing occurred, and Snape darted forward to her his wand drawn. “Dammit boy. You're being watched. Do something that will produce more than a tickle.”

He cast and I watched in horror as she screamed and writhed. Her bowels let loose and the smell was disgusting. I gagged. Snape cast again. I watched him, this man who had shown me mercy time and again. His face was schooled to stone but a fleeting air of guilt and horror lingered about him. He dragged me forward, his hand a claw against my wrist. “Don't make me do that again, boy. Now take over.”

I tried. The girl was my age, the age of my school-mates and friends. I staunched the flow of my tears; they were held in painful abeyance at the back of my throat. I cast again and saw Snape do the same, but this time, there was no reaction to our spells. He seemed relieved. To no one in particular he said, “She's dead. I'll dump her where she'll be most useful.”

He cleansed the excrement from her body almost tenderly. His hands never shook, his voice never faltered, but he seemed diminished. I watched him leave with her body levitating before him.

I fled to my rooms to be sick.

Later Aunt Bellatrix came to me, her face a mask of fury. “You always have to let Snape do your work. He's a dirty half-blood and better at this game than you.”

She slapped me open-handed and her claws raked my cheek. I covered my head with my arms and so was surprised when the first Crucio hit me. Oh, my son, I deserved it. I had put everyone's life in danger with my inability to act. I begged my aunt for the excruciating penance as she cast again. The agony lasted until my father came into the room shouting obscenities at her. My pale mother hovered around me, drawing me to her. Her face was set in lines of grief and outrage. I had hoped that night to die, but as you can tell, I didn't.

They left and I crawled to my bed. I slept fitfully until I heard my door open. I cringed and am ashamed to say, wet myself. It was Snape. He closed the door and lit the room with his wand. He sat on the bed next to me, He saw the spreading mark on my crotch and raised an expressive eyebrow. He cleansed me as I had seen him do to your mother, and dried my sheets. I was crawling with humiliation, and so lashed out at him. “Are you here to bugger me, Snape?”

I waited for his fury. No one, and I mean NO ONE, taunted Severus Snape without risk of bodily injury. He surprised me by laughing, his cultured drawl purred, “No, my taste runs towards slender red-headed women, not piss-soaked little boys.”

I recoiled from him. “I'm sorry sir. I don't know why...”

He stopped my verbal regurgitation with an elegantly raised hand. “You did not kill her. You are not a murderer.”

He stood and left the room in his swooping way. I stared after him. My soul was still whole.

&*&*&

Harry wiped his face with a shaking hand. If he and Ginny were to become the child's godparents, this document would never be seen by him. What could Malfoy have been thinking? He was complicit in the torture of the child's mother. He had admitted he was expected to kill her. For Merlin's sake, did the man have no sense?


&*&*&

Scorpius, I'll not dwell on my time as a Death Eater. I did eventually take part in acts that I would prefer to stay hidden from your eyes. I want you to know, however, that whatever atrocities I committed I did to survive. I took no joy from them.

Severus Snape talked to me at length (well at length when you consider how taciturn he really was) about my role in this madness. We had just come back from Hogwarts. He had been appointed Headmaster by then, and I had begun to have my doubts as to his allegiance. I kept them to myself. I was a thorough Slytherin still and as was that breed's wont I thought I might use the information to my advantage.

We sat in the kitchen of Malfoy Manor. He stirred his tea idly, his homely face framed by that awful, black, greasy mess that he seemed to cherish. Looking at his ugliness, I wondered why he never partook of the dubious pleasures provided by my Uncle Rodolphus while my Aunt was tending to the Dark Lord. I must have voiced this, because Snape's black gaze flew to mine. “Some acts are sacred, Mr. Malfoy, and not to be defiled by this existence.”

I had heard rumors about his sexual standing. I had to ask, “Are you a virgin, sir?”

He smirked. “There are worse things to be; rapist being one.”

Not an answer, but I hadn't really expected one. I don't know why, but I felt I had to confide in him. “Sir, I am. A virgin, I mean. I know everyone thought Pansy and I were lovers, but I just couldn't take advantage of her that way. She's a bit dim. Uncle Rodolphus wants me to go to the next revel with him. He said there would be some Muggle entertainment.”

Snape grimaced. “Do you find that sort of thing titillating?”

“No.” I said, “They'll expect me to rape someone won't they?” The words hung in the air as if made of granite.

“I expect so.” He dropped the spoon he was holding with a clatter to the table. “You don't have to go. I'll find a way for you to be on assignment.”

“Thank you sir.” I flushed, relieved at his willingness to rescue me again.

He peered at me. “Your friends, Crabbe and Goyle were at the last revel. Why don't you want to join their ranks?”

I felt my face grow warm. “My mother. I keep thinking 'What if that were her?' I know, it's expected of me, but I just can't shake that thought.”

Snape stood. “Just be a good soldier, do what they tell you to do, and don't volunteer your services to them. Ever. If you do that; you might survive.”

“Do you think you will, sir? Survive, I mean.” I asked, and was surprised to hear him stifle a sob.

“With luck I won't.” He strode from the room leaving me to think of what he said.

The next months brought no relief from my despair. We fought the battle of Hogwarts and lost. I was incarcerated in Azkaban prison for my part in the war and Snape did get his wish. He was killed by Nagini the vile familiar of the Dark Lord. Harry Potter had been a witness to Voldemort's act of brutality and came away with some of Snape's memories. You can read the accounts of them in the transcripts of his posthumous trial. Yes, Snape was given a trial because his body was never found. When Potter went back to retrieve it, it was gone. Funny thing that, his portrait has never moved either. All I can think is that he remains as obstinate in death as he was in life. It's all of no consequence to you though. I am trying to tell you of my life, not his.

I spent six years of my life in Azkaban prison. I deserved more, but the Wizengammot, in their infinite wisdom, granted me some leniency due to my age. When I emerged from there, at the age of twenty three, I had undergone something of a transformation. I was no longer the pampered child of wealthy parents. I was a shell of a human being. I was nothing. That's when I began trying to kill myself.

&*&*&

Harry yawned and glanced at his wizard's watch. It read two a.m. He had to get to work early tomorrow. He laid the papers on his desk. Malfoy's story could wait til next evening.

Chapter 2

Harry woke with a muzzy-feeling headache; the one he remembered well from his schooldays that he always got from lack of sleep. Ginny was already up and singing cheerfully off-key in the kitchen. Since she had given up her job, she seemed happier. She really was Molly Weasley's daughter. He stretched experimentally, only to encounter a small body wedged against his arm. James smiled sleepily. “Hi daddy. Mummy told me not to wake you.”

“She did, did she?” He tickled his eldest son until he was whooping with laughter. “Did she tell you to climb in bed with me Baby Bear?”

Ginny bellowed from the kitchen, “I told you to leave him alone!”

Harry felt the headache ease. “It's alright, my delicate angel. I woke up before he bothered me.”

James scampered out of the room. “Mummy, daddy's awake. I didn't do nothing.”

It was so like his son to feel defensive. Harry hoped he hadn't inculcated that in him. Harry's own insecurities did seem to surface when he least expected them. He watched his toddle away fondly, knowing he had more than he had ever expected. He felt rich.

Ginny came to the door of their room. “Sorry, Hermione had an early meeting and Ron needed to be at the shop to open up. George is missing in action again.”

Harry shrugged. “You know Jamie never bothers me.”

Ginny sat on the bed next to him. “Do you want to talk to me about Malfoy's letter?”

“Not yet.” He said, stroking her cheek. “It's just bringing up some old memories.”

“Do you mind if I go over it? It might help me to understand.” He could tell her innate curiosity was aroused by the innocent widening of her eyes.

He drew her hand to his lips. “You can if you want. What he's asked is for both of us to decide anyway.”

She said, “You can't seriously be considering whatever it is, can you?”

Harry wanted to deny it, but knew he couldn't lie to Ginevra Potter nee Weasley. “Things have changed. I think he has too. Just read it and we'll discuss it after I've had a chance to finish.”

&*&*&

Scorpius, how can I relay to you the depths to which I sank after my release from prison, without further damaging your view of me? I suppose, if Snape taught me anything it was, that as much as subterfuge serves a purpose, the truth will always come out. So I will begin by telling you I had lost my fortune. What my father hadn't squandered away on the lost cause of Tom Riddle, had to be given in reparations to the Muggles and Muggleborns that I had a hand in terrorizing. No more Malfoy Manor, no more vacations in exotic places, no more expensive clothes and brooms, just like that, the Ministry confiscated everything. I was left with the clothes I could carry and an ivory miniature of my mother. It was a difficult adjustment for me, and I did not handle it well. I couldn't find employment in the wizarding world. Who would hire a Death Eater? I drifted from one menial Muggle job to the next. My career varied only by how long I could keep a job before my Malfoy haughtiness reared it's ugly head, and I was sent on without references. I was spiraling down and out.

It was during a period of extended unemployment that I discovered the dubious pleasures of the Muggle drug, heroin. I had been sleeping in an unused tunnel of the Underground when I was accosted by two, rough-looking men. They had beaten me when they heard my manner of speech. In one of those ironic twists of justice, the bully had become the victim. I don't really know how long I lay there, several days I think, when a soft voice and gentle hand lifted me up. The man's eyes that I looked into, though bleary and red-rimmed, were kind. I must have groaned something about pain, and before I could stop him, he had put a needle in my arm. The rush of sweetness was like nothing I've ever felt, and I knew I would have to experience more of this when the feeling wore off. The man stayed with me, and I suppose gave himself a fix also. I passed out. When I came to, he was smiling beatifically at me. “I know what it's like to hurt man. Maybe you can do the same for me sometime. When you have some to spare.”

And with that, he was gone. I struggled to my feet, woozy from the beating and the drug. I slurred, “Hey, what's your name?”

“Cred.” He shouted from the distance, “You know as in credit, borrowed time, you know. If you need to find me, just ask for me by that name.”

And ask for him I did. I began using every time I was off work, never before my shift. When the shakes became too bad I would shoot up during the evening and finally I was addicted. I couldn't go more than six hours without the sweet fire in my veins. I quit eating, bathing, going to work. All that mattered was my next high, my next foray into oblivion. At first I paid for it with petty crime. Later, as my reflexes became atrophied and my magic weak, I paid for it with the use of my body by tired old men that didn't give a shit if I wasn't a pouf as long as they could wank themselves off on something warm. I had never lain with a woman, but that didn't matter to me, because I desired only my newest lady love, heroin. I didn't care that the drug was destroying me because I felt I had nothing left to preserve. I discovered places I could crash, not the accommodations I had been accustomed to, but warm and relatively safe considering where I had fallen. I was dying and didn't care.

It was in early autumn of 2004 when I saw your mother again. She was a Muggle social worker and I had been arrested the night before for vagrancy. I was shaking from the alternating heat and cold that accosted my body when I was without the drug and I looked like shit. I had been assigned social workers before and I really wasn't paying much attention to the latest addition in my life. I had been berating her for not bringing me what I really needed. I cursed her more foully than I had ever heard my uncle do, and was flaying her as well as Snape ever could have, when I heard her say, “I know who you are.”

My eyes met hers finally and that connection of long ago stirred my memory. I snarled like the animal I was. I spat into her golden-brown face with the too large eyes. “Leave me. You know what a monster I am.”

She stood inside the room, mute accusation in her posture. “You were the one that couldn't torture me.”

I screamed at her, throwing her satchel across the room, tearing at my hair. “Get out! I killed you! Get out! And don't haunt me anymore.”

She didn't move, and I pleaded with her, “Please. I didn't want to, you have to understand. I had to try. Please.”

I lost consciousness.

I awoke in a Muggle hospital bound to the bed, and with one of those IV things in my arm. She was still there, no accusations, no reprisals. I vomited. She cleaned it with the deftness born of practice. I cursed her roundly again, “Let me up you Muggle bitch. I'll tear the flesh from your bones.”

She sat down again, calmly resuming her perusal of the wreck that was me while I fell into whimpering screams. When I finally exhausted my vocal repertoire, she said, “You don't have your stick anymore, you don't scare me.”

My wand was in her hand, and she twirled it between her fingers idly. “So, do you want to tell me who you are?”

I lunged against the cloth bindings until my wrists bled and my chest felt bruised. I coughed. The tubercular sound rattled my lungs, liquid and nauseating. All junkies have it, I had just been fortunate not to hear it when I wasn't flying the dragon. I was horrified.

She remained in the chair during this display, still twirling my wand, with the same dispassionate expression. “I have all day. You either tell me your name, or I have the staff withhold your next dose of methadone. It's quite simple.”

“How Slytherin of you, my dear.” I spat the words out, and realized immediately how fucking stupid I was. She was a Muggle. She didn't know anything about my world, other than her one disastrous foray on the night I thought Snape killed her. I began laughing and couldn't stop. I whooped when I couldn't breathe anymore and dissolved into another coughing fit. She still just stared, her topaz eyes calmly assessing me. Finally I whispered, “Draco Malfoy. And you are, Madam?”

“The person who had the misfortune of meeting you twice.” She stood. “The ugly man that hurt me told me to forgive you if I ever saw you again. He said you were caught in an untenable situation in a house of lunatics. His words exactly, not paraphrased. I remember everything about that night and I won't forgive you. I'm not that big a person. I hope you die in as much pain as my family did.”

She left then and I think I began to love her a little.

I spent the next week in agony as the maintanance dosage of the drug was dropped. I saw her twice in that time, her demeanor never changed and I didn't want it to. I didn't deserve the minimal regard she gave me, and I certainly didn't deserve to have the feelings about her that her presence evoked. She was lovely, a creamy skinned West Indian, with a golden brown mane that would have put Granger to shame. One sight of her expressive almond-shaped eyes sent me into rapture. I wanted her stoic hatred to be directed at me. I craved to be slapped by her lovely hand. I needed her to pay me back for the evil I had wrought in her world. I began to dream of her. I hadn't dreamt anything since leaving prison. Don't think that I was having fantasies of a sexual nature. In my dreams she was always an avenging dark fury and I was being cast into hell, flayed by her righteousness, tormented by my desire for her dark anger.

She didn't speak to me during that week and I was glad of it. Her withdrawal only fueled my fantasies, and they were all I had at that moment. Finally, she entered my room one day and spoke, her rich voice arctic, “You're being released. I'll take you to the halfway house and set you up there.”

I felt the dread of the unknown weighing down my limbs. I couldn't make myself leave the bed and I began snivelling. The tears were of the lost little boy I had been when I was fourteen, and faced with my father's complicity in the death of Cedric Diggory, a pureblood of some social standing. I remembered mother's scream as he slapped her that night. I know I said he wasn't an utter bastard to us, but there are degrees of bastardliness. That night, he had reached his limit with my mother, and she had kept pushing him, ranting about how it was all right for him to be involved with the death of a mudblood, halfblood or blood-traitor, but to kill a pureblood was a crime. He continued to beat her until she shut the hell up, and I cried like the whinging toad I was trained to be. But, again, I digress. I was to leave the hospital and go with this woman who hoped I would die painfully. I just hoped it would be soon.

She stood by my bed holding the filthy rags in which I had been arrested. Her expression softened. “We need to stop by a second-hand store and get you some new clothes. I think these have seen better days.”

“Much.” I said thickly, between tears. “Leave me, so that I might change, please.”

She complied, the softened expression still on her face.

&*&*&

Harry came home to Ginny's tears and the cooker billowing smoke. She clutched the letter from Malfoy to her chest. “Oh, Harry, we have to do something. I can't stand the thought of that child in that situation.”

“I take it we're having carry out tonight?” He smiled to ease the sting of his words. A pregnant Ginny under the influence of strong emotion, who just burned dinner, was not a woman with whom one trifled. “We'll discuss it after I finish, but yeah, it looks like we'll be the boy's godparents.”