Family Rules

5. How to Provide for the Future


When Lucius came down to breakfast the next morning, he found Severus and Draco returning from a walk in the garden. Their faces burned from the cold and Draco looked positively radiant. He greeted his father with all the necessary respect and Lucius could tell that a night’s rest had helped to mould Draco’s resentment into understanding and acceptance.

After breakfast, there was still some time for Lucius and Severus to share, before Severus had to return to his appointment with the Headmaster at Hogwarts. Tinky served them a special blend of Lucius’ favourite Chinese tea in the smoking room and they settled in front of the fireplace once more.

“You spoke with Draco this morning?” Lucius opened their conversation.

“We took a walk in the gardens. They are beautiful, even in winter.” Severus gently swirled his tea in the delicate cup.

Lucius said nothing and waited for Severus to go on.

“He asked me about his grandfather. When you punished him yesterday, you told him that he should consider himself lucky. He wasn’t sure what you meant by that. He also keeps wondering why his grandfather’s portrait is silent most of the time.”

Lucius held his tongue. It was safer to keep his feelings at bay. What did Draco know?

“I asked him what he knew about his grandfather. Draco said that judging from the portrait in your study, Abraxas seemed to be the quiet type and that he died of Dragon Pox at Christmas the year he was born. That you and Narcissa never talk about him.”

Lucius decided that he trusted his voice enough to speak. “What else has he told you?”

“That was all. We went on to other things. He hopes to make you proud by earning more points for his House as a Prefect and lending a helping hand to that Umbridge woman. He was still in pain, though he tried his best not to show it.” Severus sighed. “I told him to be careful and not to hold a grudge.”

“I don’t care if he holds a grudge against me.” Lucius almost spat out the words. “He will be careful, though. I taught him so just yesterday morning.”

“Who are you trying to fool? You do care about your son’s feelings towards you. You charmed your father’s portrait to remain silent, did you not?”

“I don’t want him to talk to Draco. I don’t want to listen to his lies any longer. I don’t want him threatening my family.” Lucius’ hands shook and he gripped the upholstery of the armchair for support. He hated Severus’ softly spoken questions. How dare he interrogate Lucius in his own home!

Severus’ voice reached his ears again. “Lucius, we have been friends for more than twenty years now. I neither questioned your actions, nor your reasons. Don’t you think it’s time to confide?”

Time. Was it time? The suggestion filled him with relief. He realised with astonishment that he couldn’t tell when his need for secrecy had changed into the silent hope to share his burden. Lucius slowly nodded, refusing for once in his life to think about a decision twice. It felt like the right thing to do. “It is time,” he whispered, looking right into Severus’ face.

Their eyes locked, and Lucius felt the familiar tickling of Severus touching his mind. “Show me where you are hurting.”

He led the way, and his friend followed in calm watchfulness. Lucius carefully lifted the veil and they walked further down into the caverns of his memory. The path was dark, but they took every turn without hesitation, never stopping, until they had been all the way down and back again.

Severus’ eyes were still warm with sympathy, although a clear-cut gravity showed his contempt. Lucius knew that it was not meant for him.

“I always thought he was hard on you. But he was … worse than that.”

“It’s over. I saved my family.”

“You did.” A pause. “One line was blank.”

Lucius nodded. “Nothing important, though.” He shrugged. “Just a harsher repetition of what you’ve seen.”

“I understand.” The gentleness in Severus’ voice felt like balm on wounds which had never healed properly.

There was no need to talk any further. The comforting silence that enveloped them was interrupted only by the occasional clink of a teacup on its saucer. At last, Severus put his empty cup away and stood up.

“I have to go, Lucius. Or else I’ll be late for my appointment with the Headmaster.”

Lucius nodded in agreement. “Severus, old chap.” He accompanied the other man to the door and took his hand. “Thank you. For everything.”

Severus squeezed back. “I already said goodbye to Narcissa and Draco. It was good to see you again, my friend.” He turned, stepped down the outer staircase and Disapparated.

Lucius stood by his favourite window in the study and watched the snow dancing in the air. He had only kept one last bit to himself. It hadn’t been necessary to show this to Severus, the rest had been enough to make him fully understand. It had been time to confide. Now it was time to forget and move on.

He opened the glass doors of the Pensieve and took a small vial out of a secret drawer of his desk. The blank line. One like many, all blurred and interwoven, telling the same tale. He uncorked the vial and poured the contents into the stone basin. The smoke-like liquid swirled around and around, pulling him closer. One last time, one last look, one final goodbye. He opened his eyes wide and bent over the grey swirling mist.

***

He was in the dungeons. It had always happened in the dungeons. A spitting image of himself stood over a cowering boy of about fifteen, who held his arms and hands up to protect his face.

“This will not do, boy! I said ‘Take your wand and defend yourself’ not ‘Snivel when you cannot deflect a curse’. Try harder, boy! Try to taste the desire to kill. You know what will happen the next time you cannot defend yourself, don’t you?”

With trembling hands, the boy made a move at his wand which lay abandoned on the floor beside him. While he was still reaching for it, his father shot another spell in his direction. “Accio wand!” The boy’s fingers touched nothing but the dirty floor.

“You don’t think to guard yourself from even the simplest spells, boy. This time, your failure demands I respond with Cruciatus. Come on, try to save yourself. Try to run. You will not succeed. You’re a loser, a bad egg – unless you will finally stand up to convince me otherwise.”

The boy desperately looked around for anything that could serve as a weapon to fight with, to protect himself from the dreaded curse. No matter how hard he trained at school, no matter how quickly he succeeded in disarming other students, he was no match for his father. There was no way he could hide from this.

A thin smile played on Abraxas’ lips as he trained his wand on the boy in front of him. “Crucio!” The boy fell to the floor, where he thrashed and convulsed as spasms of pain ravaged his body. After a few moments, Abraxas released him from the curse.

Lucius watched as his younger self tried to get up from the floor. The boy’s body shook badly.

Please, make him stop. Please, somebody come and help me. Lucius still remembered what had been the boy’s most desperate wish – in spite of everything he had known. No one had ever come to save him. Lucius’ nails dug deep into his palms, marking them, but he didn’t feel it.

“Don’t forget your manners, boy.”

The boy, still on his knees, looked up. Blood ran down his chin, he had bitten his lips. “Th-th-thank you … sir,” he panted, “… for pu-punishing me.”

“Next time, I won’t have to remind you,” said Abraxas. “Crucio!” He held the curse for several agonising minutes. The boy was quickly reduced to a twisting, screaming bundle on the floor. His hands were balled into white-knuckled fists and dark bruises were blooming on his skin where he had hit the ground again and again. When his father lifted the curse, the boy tried to speak, but coughed so hard that he couldn’t master his voice.

“Boy?” questioned Abraxas. “I can’t hear you…” He paused and watched his son fighting for air. “Again you fail me. I am sorry, but you will eventually learn to behave … Crucio!”

Beneath the curse, the boy was breaking down by degrees. His screams quickly turned into croaks and from there into a choked whimpering. His body still twitched in agony, but the movements had grown weak, like a rag-doll’s head dangling on a string. When Abraxas lowered his wand, the boy stilled at once. Minutes passed in waiting. Finally the boy’s small frame moved and he slowly pulled himself into a halfway upright position.

Lucius let out a breath.

The boy’s lips moved, but he made no sound.

“Boy, I’m waiting.” After a strained pause, Abraxas continued, “You might think that I’m too hard on you, but always remember that I kept you in spite of you being a murderer.”

Lucius tensed. Even after all these years, the sight of the scene still captured his very soul. He knew why his father held no mercy for him. His sin had become unmistakably engraved in his skin. He had been four years old, a vibrant toddler breaking in a free run from his mother’s hand.

Lucius still remembered the warmth of her hand, wrapped around his little one. And then his small hand slipping free from hers, like a slender snake wriggling its way among the grass. Suddenly, he was free to run, to roam – and so he did, drawn to something so interesting on the other side of the road. It called to him, lured him like the magic that coursed through his veins. She was calling him, too, but her words were garbled. Lucius’ full attention was on crossing the road, to get near, to see, to touch, to feel and taste. Here he was, reaching out for it, and then he heard the screaming of tyres and the loud thud that followed. Someone else was screaming now, the voice of an unknown woman in the road. His mother’s voice was silent to the world, and in his hand he held nothing but the twisted, dried up branch of a tree, which had looked like a dancing fairy only moments ago.

People told him that his mother had been run over by a Muggle car, but Lucius knew that she would not have been in the road if not for him and his childish fantasies. He was left to live with his father, a grieving husband who had lost his beloved wife. A father who had hated his son ever since because he had cost him his most treasured possession. A businessman in need of an heir who would prove his killer-instinct to the world.

As he grew older, Lucius understood that, punishing him had, at first, been a way for his father to express loss and pain and desperation. Later, it also became a method to find release at the pretense of teaching him.

“Come here. And stay down for it.”

The boy wouldn’t have been able to walk at any rate. He slowly made his way on all fours towards his father.

“As you’ve used up your voice for screaming … bow to me. Now.”

He had to do this, even though he didn’t want to.

Lucius shivered as the boy, on his knees, lowered himself towards the floor. His forehead briefly touched the earth in front of his father’s boots. The boy’s thoughts rang in Lucius’ memory. I want to survive. I can survive everything. He still could.

Abraxas fumbled with his belt buckle, but the boy kept his eyes fixed on the floor. As long as he didn’t have to see, he could pretend that it had never happened.

Pretending had been hard. His father had been doing this for years. And the boy had hated every single time he had been forced to witness. He hated it, even if it was a pure-blood tradition and every father was expected to teach his sons the ways of men and women. Like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather and all the fathers in the Malfoy family before them. Only that most fathers didn’t start when their sons were not even old enough to go to Hogwarts. From what the boy knew of his classmates, their fathers hadn’t initiated them before the last summer holidays and also seemed to use a less practical approach. The boys talked about it with an air of honour-bound secrecy and pride. Others still burned with desire to know what the whispered talk was all about. Whereas young Lucius’ curiosity had been burned away years ago.

His father continued his manipulation, let himself go loose and grunted occasionally.

The boy crouched beside him, head low and eyes firmly on the ground.

“You don’t even have the guts to watch something as simple as that.” Abraxas kicked him in the side and the boy tumbled over. “Come back to me. And be quick about it.” A heavy pause. “Or shall I curse you again?”

The boy winced and crawled back to his father.

“For Merlin’s sake, look at me!”

He obediently lifted his head, with his eyes still out of focus. A white sloshing blur passed his vision and then, it was over. Something had wetted the ground. There’s no use crying over spilled milk. The thought almost made him giggle. But, he admonished himself, laughing would only make things worse.

Lucius watched and felt nothing but anguish. He wanted to tell the boy that he wasn’t alone in this, that somebody watched over him and cared. But that, of course, would have been a lie.

“I said, look! So do what you’re told!” Abraxas grabed the boy by the neck and forced him to face the wet spots on the floor. “Look at it! Look – this could have been your brothers and sisters. This could have been our family. But you had to go and get her killed. And then you didn’t even have the decency to get lost. I should have given you away. I should have sent you to an orphanage.”

The boy whimpered but did nothing to fight his father’s grip, even though the man had begun to accentuate each of his sentences with a sharp blow to the boy’s body.

“Look at this. What a waste. What a waste you are. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I know that you try, boy. You try. Try again, try to get into my good books. Try to learn all about the family business, to make yourself of use. I know that you do. I know that! But it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough!”

He hurled them both to the ground, disregarding the bruising it caused them. The boy managed to cushion the fall with his arms and hands to prevent his head from hitting the floor with full force. His father continued to flail around his fists, now hitting the shaking boy as well as the ground and his own chest.

“Fa- sir.” A tiny voice. “Sir, no- Father, please.”

Wetness glistened in the man’s eyes when he grabbed the boy again and shook him hard.

“So, son ... How dare you think that you’d ever be enough? She’s gone! And you little shit, you killed her. You should have died instead. But no, you had the nerve- you had the nerve to survive, even though I stopped feeding you for days. You would have survived on thin air. And so I thought, maybe he is the son worthy of his father after all. I decided to test you. But you failed. You failed me every single time. All you did was to survive. You are a parasite, a worm, a bad egg I cannot get rid of.”

Abraxas resumed his thrashing. The boy tried to crawl away from his father, but he was too exhausted to cover more than a few steps. Abraxas followed him with ease, hitting wherever he could reach.

Lucius watched as the boy collapsed onto the floor and curled into a tight ball, while his father pounded him mercilessly. He heard his fifteen-year-old self whimpering and remembered every scattered thought that had flooded his mind. It hurts, hurts so much. Please, no, let him- Stop! I must ... need- No! -protect my- No, please! -myself. The fists continued their thrashing. The boy Lucius weakly held up his arms to cover his face. The pain was ready to overwhelm him. No, no more, hurts so ... so much. I must- I can’t! ... No, please… please! … No … no more … stop it … help … please … no, don’t! … Hurts … hurts … hurtshurtshurts …

***

The memory ended abruptly, and after a short moment of darkness Lucius found himself lying on the floor in front of the Pensieve. With measured movements, he stood up and slowly gathered his composure, smoothing down his robes and hair. He poured himself a glass of water and drained it in small, careful sips until his breathing steadied. A knock on the door startled him.

“Who’s there? I’m busy.”

“Father, it is me. May I come in? I’ve found a spell in the book you gave me that I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Just a moment.”

Lucius picked up his wand. It was time to let go. Time to share their fate at the Dark Lord’s side, unblemished by the ghosts of the past. “Evanesco!” he murmured, and the contents of the Pensieve swirled into the air, gone forever.

He flicked his wand at the door and released the locking charm. “Come in, Draco.”

Lucius watched as his son entered the room, eyes shining with energy and curiosity. He felt a smile broadening his lips when he thought of the glorious future that this one was going to have under the reign of the Dark Lord. Draco Malfoy, his capable, handsome and well-taught son.

“Tell me, what’s the name of that spell?”

The End