All I Ever Wanted

DISCLAIMER: Warning! I make no claim to any property of J.K. Rowling's, and am in no way profiting by this. I do offer her my sincerest thanks for allowing us this garden of the mind in which we play. Further Warning! This story...and likely any I ever write...are dominated by gay themes and characters. That's how it is, if this in any way makes you uncomfortable...do not read further.

Author's Notes: Beta-credit goes to Constant Vigilance (and the staff of the HF... who labored over my atrocious punctuation with uncommon valor! Especially you Sevfan!)

"All I Ever Wanted" chap. 34 'A Giant Falls'

Draco and Harry were quickly delivered to Azkaban by the Aurors, who were waiting for them at the Ministry. Once again, they strolled the grey and sorrowful halls of Azkaban together, this time for the most unpleasant purpose yet.

They were led to a small gallery full of seats. It overlooked a glass window that showed a room occupied only by a single door, and a chair adorned by straps. Kingsley Shacklebolt was in attendance, as were the few members of old houses that held to the etiquette of years gone by. Only Draco stood to represent the Malfoy family at this affair, but he was glad of Harry's presence beside him.

They were seated at the front of the room, as befit the nearest of kin, and seconds later, the door they had come through opened. Draco's family solicitor walked in and sat down beside him.

Mr. Burke offered his condolences politely and with a modicum of sincerity, then informed Draco that in a few minutes the sentence would be executed and there would be papers handed to Draco immediately after. Several of the papers were documents regarding his legal status as the new Lord Malfoy, and the properties that would come to his hands as part of that transfer. The remaining one was a letter from his father, prepared the previous night.

Harry and Draco exchanged concerned glances at the news of the letter from Lucius. Harry in particular felt afraid for his love. Perhaps Lucius' poison tongue had chosen to vent one last blast of bile at his child, hurting Draco one last time, even after Lucius' ability to form coherent thoughts was gone. Harry wouldn't have put it past the bastard. It was very much Lucius' style to get in the last word. They sat in silence, holding hands tightly, waiting for the event itself to unfold.

The door opened once again, and this time Aurors flanked a well-dressed and a clean Lord Malfoy. Lucius' head was held high and his stride did not indicate a man broken and headed to his end. The soon to be former Lord Malfoy walked through the room with a fierce smile across his face, chin high and eyes daring anyone to gainsay his right to walk like a noble born.

When the procession passed Harry and Draco, Lucius turned his head and gave each of them a sober and serious nod. There was no anger in his eyes, just a quiet resignation and an implacable will. His eyes spoke volumes, communicating a silent passing of the torch to the two boys that occupied the seats reserved for family.

In an instant, Draco knew he was the new lord, and would be until the day he died. The realization draped across Draco's shoulders like a mantle, settling in and subtly weighing him down with the burden so many others had once carried. A history of more than a thousand years became a sudden reality to him; a duty that was almost made sacred by its very age.

Draco was no longer just a teenaged schoolboy, concerned with pangs of love and lust and the grind of class work. Now he was the steward of a house and its traditions, which called upon him to sacrifice much of himself in the service of something ancient and proud.

Draco took all this in over the space of a few heartbeats, meeting his father's gaze for a matter of seconds, then he watched the tall and powerful gentleman who had sired him walk to his death.

Lucius sat in the chair calmly, and was bound at the wrists and ankles by the Aurors who had flanked him. He sat peacefully, almost serene, as his guardians left the room.

Lucius looked to his right lazily, as if bored by the opening door on the far wall. The Dementor that entered, the last one in captivity since their betrayal of Azkaban, swept in with icy silence. It moved swiftly to the only being in the room with it, zeroing in on Lucius in less than a second.

Most surprising of all was the strange, daring smile on Lucius' face when he leaned forward boldly, meeting the creature's Kiss without a tremor of fear. Their faces joined only for a few minutes, but the Kiss took its toll quickly. The rigidness of the man's muscles quickly lessened until they hung slack, and when the creature parted from him, that haughty face was dull and empty, eyes lacking even a spark of rational thought. Lucius Malfoy may have lived, but all that one might have recognized of him had been stripped away.

The Aurors cast their spells and drove the Dementor through the other door, then they entered and locked it. Lucius was unbound and led, stumbling and slack-jawed, back to his cell.

Through all this, the boys had sat in silence, but Draco's iron will finally unclenched and he laid his head on Harry's shoulder. Harry pulled Draco's head into the crook of his arm and kissed his neck in quiet sympathy.

Even Harry had been impressed by Lucius' majesty in his final moments. He wished he had known the man that Draco had known so many years ago. It seemed such a waste that anyone with so much strength would end his days in this dank, grey hellhole.

Draco was stifling tiny sobs against Harry's chest, and his hands were holding Harry's so tightly that they hurt quite badly. After a few graceless minutes, Draco composed himself, pretending that his momentary lapse of etiquette had not happened.

Mr. Burke coughed discreetly and offered Draco his condolences, then handed him a letter, explaining that his father's last statements and wishes were contained within.

Mr. Burke excused himself and left politely, leaving Draco staring at the letter in his hands. Kingsley Shacklebolt waited in grim silence. Even the grizzled Auror was uncomfortable, having watched a man he loathed pass so bravely before the ultimate judgement. Still, he waited politely for the boys to make their peace since, for an occasion like this, there was no rushing the family of the sentenced.

Draco looked to Harry with the letter trembling in his hands, and Harry gave only a silent nod, as if to say, 'Do what you must, I'll be here for you when you're done.'

Draco opened the letter and began to read. When he put the parchment down, he began to weep, tipping his head back and smiling in a way that left Harry stunned as the tears rolled down Draco's cheeks. Draco handed Harry the letter, wiping his eyes and grinning almost insanely wide. Harry took the parchment from his boyfriend's shaky hand...and this is what he read:


To Draco, my beloved son and true heir, whom I have wronged,

I write this in the hours before the Kiss is to be administered, knowing that my time as a coherent and rational man is now measured in but the smallest increments. Much of what I have said and done is unforgivable. This I know. I have been given cause to look back upon my life and the choices that I have made; all those things which have led me to this time and place. You should know that I look back with some regret. I have told you many things regarding my opinion of the wizarding world and its leadership. You have heard it all many times. The majority of it, I still hold to be true. There are, however, some certain things which I now know, with perfect clarity, to have been misjudgments of my own.

Lord Voldemort offered himself as an agent of change, which I embraced. Yet, in the end, it seems he was only an agent of terror and pointless destruction. I was a fool to have followed him so far down the path to open war, knowing what a repulsive and obsessed creature he had become. I regret that I have been responsible for the fall of our family name, and the loss of much of our stature in the wizarding community.

More so than the former, I carry one regret so deeply that I cannot speak of it aloud, thus this last letter. That regret is what I have put you through. At this hour, as I write, I thank the gods you never aligned yourself with Voldemort or fell into his sphere of influence. Shortly, you shall be the Lord Malfoy, and it will take a great deal of work to overcome the shameful legacy I have left behind. I grieve now that I have caused you so much pain, even when I had only the smallest shred of time left to share with my family. The things I have said to you were the rantings of a trapped and bitter man, all unfit to be repeated, all untrue.

You are my only child, my bright and beloved son, of whom I am so terribly proud. The stain of my angers and fears never tainted you, and I am glad of it. My greatest fear, in many ways, was that you might well have been a better man than I. I do not fear that thought any longer, I rejoice in it. Be wise and good through your life, be kind and decent and fair. Reject everything I once embraced, and you will have a far happier life than mine.

Though it pains me to say such a thing, that Potter is an exceptional young man. His words ringing in my ears brought about this letter. I cannot say I approve of abandoning the responsibilities of an heir for some sort of arrangement with another man, but if you must, better it be with someone such as he. I have no doubt that my former lord will be dealt with in the most thorough and permanent way available when he finally meets Mr. Potter.

Last, I know an apology is a trivial and meaningless thing; so much I have done is beyond the strength of any apology to expiate. I ask instead that you forgive me for being a proud and stubborn man, and for being too blind to see all that I was blessed with. If you can forgive me, I ask for a single boon. Soon I will face the Kiss. All hope, any dreams, every happy thought will leave me. I know the boon I ask will only delay the inevitable, yet I desire it anyway. I wish a memory to be captured and brought to me. Just one. One memory that I can look upon and from which try to extract some small amount of satisfaction.

Do you remember when you were six and we used to walk the gardens every day? I would carry you on my shoulders and name the plants and animals for you. I recall that you liked to chase butterflies and fireflies. I want only one memory of those times. I think, having given much consideration to the matter, that those were the happiest and most free moments of my entire life. So much that came after was tainted by my arrogance and hubris. Grant me this one final boon, and I shall be grateful, though I may have no means to express it.

I wish you a long and happy life, my son, and I implore you to use it well and wisely. Look after your mother as best you can. Though I never said it enough in days past, I love you dearly and am more proud of you than you may ever know.

Your Father, Lucius Malfoy


Harry read the letter to its end, awed by every word. Nothing in that page of neat script resembled the man he'd struck and cursed just over a week ago. Now he knew just a glimpse of the man that Draco had called his father, and that knowledge left him reeling. Draco's eyes were fixed upon the ceiling, as if to implore heaven for some shred of explanation, and when he curled to Harry's side, it was only to sob into that fine, strong shoulder.

The world contracted, just two boys in a room of empty chairs, holding tight to one another...with Kingsley Shacklebolt, silent as the grave in the corner, watching in discomforted silence at the grief that poured from the last scion of a house he'd sworn to see crushed.

Justice seemed a pettier thing, a smaller word, than when he'd first taken his oath as an Auror. Perhaps there was Good and Evil, but there was much in between the two, and this was sobering in the face of what he watched pass between the last Malfoy and his lover, The Boy Who Lived.

There was a fine irony there, Kingsley mused. That a house steeped in darkness should, at the last, fall to the hands of one turned to light by the wizarding world's own saviour. It was hard for a veteran Auror to believe, but maybe in that weird fusion was a lesson that could well be the future of their world, a faint chance at peace after so much death and sorrow.

Harmony between opposites. It might be more than an old and battle scarred veteran could learn, but the thought that a new generation would see these boys' example pleased him. These and other thoughts curled like smoke through Shacklebolt's mind, while Harry and Draco clung to one another with quiet desperation.

Azkaban may have been the very vision of hell, but when it was behind them, and the Ministry was just a blur of offices and robes, Draco led Harry down the long path of Malfoy Manor, down to the doors of the place he now ruled as Lord Malfoy. The new lord held his lover's hand every step of the way, safe in the knowledge that, even if he were indeed the last of his line, he would still surely leave this world as the happiest.