FIC: Things That Change, 22/?
Title: Things That Change [22/?]
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: After Hogwarts, everything changes.
Author's Notes: Thank you so much to my beta, B, without which I wouldn't have had the drive to finish this.
[Part 1][Part 2][Part 3][Part 4][Part 5][Part 6][Part 7][Part 8][Part 9][Part 10]
[Part 11][Part 12][Part 13][Part 14][Part 15][Part 16][Part 17][Part 18][Part 19]
[Part 20][Part 21][Part 22]
1.
In the distance, there is the faint sound of breaking glass. Draco doesn’t realize that his hand is emptied of the soapy dish until he hears the crunch of shards under his father’s boots. He is rooted in place as the swirling scent of his father’s cologne reaches his nose.
He is a child again, on his father’s knee, in his father’s office, touching his father’s objects in the cabinet, learning how to fly a broom as his father watches and nods and tells him to pull back. The smell is strong, like incenses in Knockturn Alley, and rich.
His body falls falls falls and cannot get up, yet he doesn’t move.
“So this is where you have been hiding?” his father says.
No! he screams. “Yes,” he murmurs, his stomach plummeting when his father’s lip curls up, “Muggle scum” on his breath.
Draco watches the scene unfold, much like a program on the telly. He can feel his body standing, ready to slump forward, his mouth open as he stops himself from breathing. This is not real, this dream. He will wake in bed, with Potter beside him, and his father will be dead, food of the fish in the icy northern sea.
But his father simply stands, breathing, as real as Draco is.
“You’re dead,” he manages, choking on the words. His throat has closed up. Bile burns his stomach, rising, rising with a moan, pained and awful and shameful. “You’re a ghost.”
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” his father whispers. His mouth is set in a thin line as Draco nods, once, and too late. His father sits at the edge of the couch, his eyes shifting to the sides, taking in the telly, the Muggle photographs, the door to the kitchen where he can see the microwave, everything, everything Muggle, except for a scrubbed-out cauldron in the bottom of the closet in the backroom.
His fingers touch the edge of a facing chair as he sits himself down onto the cushion, perched on the precipice. His eyes search his father out beneath the new lines in his face, beneath the new glaze over his cold eyes, watching him, roving over him, this house, judging.
“So you married a Muggle,” his father murmurs, stroking the arm of the couch with the tip of his wand. His eyes roll to Draco as he speaks, narrowing them.
“I- no,” Draco says.
“A Muggleborn, then,” his father says. He considers for a moment, his tongue touching his lower lip before he leans closer to Draco. “And you have children with her.”
He can’t bear to deny it, to admit the truth, so he nods, the lump in his throat pressing, and the twisting in his stomach so tight he can hardly focus on anything besides the gut-wrenching agony of these moments. The clock ticks, time spreading into eternity. His father sits in silence, calculating his situation for hours and Draco grows smaller by the second.
He is the child again.
“They’re my family,” he chokes. “They’re-”
“Yes, I see,” his father says. “You have a daughter,” he adds, turning to the entranceway. His eyes move over Pyrrha as she stands awkwardly, holding the doorframe and biting her lip. “And will you introduce us?” his father says, standing up slowly and holding his hand out, palm raised for Pyrrha to take.
Draco swallows the lump in his throat and inhales slowly. “Pyrrha,” he murmurs, nodding to her as she walks forward, casting him a tentative smile. “My father,” he whispers, his breath catching as his father reaches for Pyrrha’s hand and a dark smile curves his lips.
“How old are you?” his father says, sitting down once more, his robes falling over the couch, dark and smooth, rippling at the edges. Draco can see the sheen of the fine cut velvet, the silver thread piping. His own robes, Potter bought them, not cheap, but nothing of the finery of his father.
He feels embarrassed for himself, and even more when he takes in what his father stares at on his daughter. He’s been used to this for years, but her shorts that skim her skin high on her thighs- completely and utterly Muggle, completely and utterly innocent, yet his father wouldn’t know, wouldn’t understand and instead sits up straight and stiff and sneers.
“And her mother- some Muggle bitch?” his father says, his voice low.
“Don’t you dare say that about my-”
“Shut it!” Draco snaps at her. His hand has clenched his wand, a Silencio at the tip of his tongue. “Don’t!” he warns as she lowers her eyes, hurt. Guilt gnaws at his stomach, but nothing like his father could ever cause.
“Does he not-” Pyrrha starts to stay, but stops when Draco glares. His skin feels numb, the line of his lips even more so.
“Isn’t this interesting,” his father says, leaning back on the couch with a cold smile. “You’ve married a Mudblood or Muggle, Draco. Didn’t you remember all those times you promised your mother and I when you were a boy that you would settle for nothing less than your blood deserved?”
He wants to tell his father things have changed, but he can’t open his mouth. He can’t do anything. The words failure and disappointment are written all over the raised brow of his father, the little snorts he makes, the feeling eating him inside out.
“And do you have other siblings?” his father says at last to Pyrrha.
She nods. “Three, yes.”
“I thought as much,” his father says. “Been busy with your wife, then, Draco? Tell me, what are their names?”
Pyrrha’s eyes flit to his. He turns away, nodding slowly. He bites his lip as she opens her mouth. He has never been brave and this, this fear of his father’s disapproval manifest, only proves him the coward Potter accused him of being so many, many years ago.
2.
“I’m the oldest,” Pyrrha says, her voice growing as her words come. “Eighteen.”
“And did you attend…Hogwarts?” his father asks.
Pyrrha nods. “I finished in June.”
“Your father has been busy, then. Only twenty when she was born, Draco?”
Draco says nothing.
“And my brother- he’s sixteen now. And my sister, she’s-”
“DON’T TALK ABOUT ME!”
The sound of thumping upstairs and doors slamming and then Viola stomping downstairs breaks some of the tension rife in the air but only tightens the feeling in Draco’s chest when he sees Viola stalk into the room, hands on her hips, saying “I said my name is Anne now!”
And then she sees his father sitting there across from Draco and Pyrrha. She glances from Draco to his father, her brows knitting and her eyes widening. Draco knows she must see the similarities- how can she not? The pointed faces, the pale hair, the pale skin, the same eyes.
But his father doesn’t see the family resemblance in her. She doesn’t have Pyrrha’s blonde, Pyrrha’s height or grace. She has Potter’s pinched look and Potter’s chin and hair that is neither red nor blonde, but somewhere in between. “And who is this?” he asks Draco.
“My second daughter,” he mumbles. “Viola.”
“Anne,” Viola hisses. “Who’s he?”
Draco feels something shrivel up inside when his father’s lip twitch, forming a bitter smile. But Pyrrha speaks first, saying, “Our grandfather.”
“Sure,” Viola says, pulling back a hanging lock of hair from her eyes. She shrugs and stomps back upstairs, leaving them draped in silence once more as his father stands and examines the room. He walks slowly, not from age, but from casual disgust, Draco knows. The way he taps his wand against the telly screen, the way his nose turns up at the stacks of London newspapers that Potter reads occasionally, which bury under them what few Quidditch magazines Draco might read.
And then his father stops. Draco turns, catching sight of his father in the mirror, his back turned to Draco, swathed in dark robes and silver fastenings, smelling of earthy patchouli like his mother used to burn sometimes in the Manor, scotch and the wood paneling of his office at home, where Draco had come for comfort, for solace, to hide when he read that Daily Prophet exposé.
He hasn’t been there since, but his father must have been.
His father’s shoulder moves under his robes, and he touches something small, picking it up.
Draco sucks in a breath, seeing the reflection of a photograph in the mirror, seeing four grainy faces of his children smiling back from the static image.
He’ll see Potter in them now. He’ll know.
Inside, he is torn between the agonizing disappointment his father exudes for him and the fear that this- this eighteen years with Potter will be discovered. Draco stands up and pushes Pyrrha aside, flicking his wand as he says, “Accio photograph!”
The photo zooms from his father’s hand and hits Draco square in the stomach. He doubles over, winded for a moment, but nothing worse than the wrenching inside himself these long, long minutes since his father showed up.
“Are you…ashamed of your children?” his father drawls, his back to Draco.
He can hear Pyrrha gasp at the words. He can feel her stare, boring into his brain, his heart, his soul, asking him too if he is ashamed.
And he can hear other noises- the sounds of Viola upstairs, flushing toilets and slamming doors, the low rumble of her music seeping through the floor as she hides in her room. He can hear Muggle cars on the roadway outside the house, driving by, unknowing witnesses to the scene through the large front window, father and son and granddaughter, meeting for the first time.
He doesn’t answer.
This, he knows, hurts the most. Pyrrha stands up, covering her mouth with a hand, and leaves, rushing through the house to the backdoor, slamming that in turn as she retreats to the garden, her sanctuary of flowers, just like his mother had hers.
“She looks like your mother,” his father says under his breath. “My Narcissa.”
“I tried to save her-”
His father says nothing, his eyes growing dark with an impermeable blankness. Draco’s heart pounds, his chest swelling, rising into his ribs, pressing uncomfortably, so much so that he feels he can hardly breathe anymore, though his exhaling whistles through his nose.
“You’re replaced your family with another,” his father says. “Half-bloods.”
Draco clutches the arm of the chair, rubbing his sweaty palms into the coarse material, digging his fingernails into the fibre. Something builds inside him, bursting forth when he snaps, “They’re your blood too!”
His father changes. “Oh, really?” he murmurs, his voice silken and low.
Draco backs down, retreating, inching himself deeper into the back of the chair, willing his words to stop echoing in his ears, to stop being burned onto his tongue. “Don’t hate me, father,” he says weakly.
“What has this world done to you?” his father says, glancing around at the sounds from the motorways outside. “To have made you so…cowardly of your own family?”
“I’m not!” Draco insists, but his voice cracks on the words. The shame, the anger at himself deepens and his stomach twists with disgust. “You- they said you were dead,” he mumbles. “I- I thought you were dead, that I was the last Mal-”
“The last Malfoy? No, far from it, Draco.” His father purses his lips, tracing his bottom lip with a finger as he leans back. “The Ministry would like to think I’m dead, wouldn’t they?”
“There was the scandal and Po- they said you were dead. Thrown into the sea.”
His father smiles. “Draco, you fool. You naïve fool. The wardens were lax- not everyone they threw into the sea was dead. I sit before you- am I dead?” He holds out his hand, beckoning Draco with curled fingers. “Am I not as real as you?”
Reluctant, Draco reaches out. His father’s hand is warm and hard, solid and real. He jerks his hand back, clenched around Draco’s wrist as he pulls Draco toward him. Draco stumbles, falling to his knees across the carpet as his father hisses, “They thought they could be rid of me, but instead they pay me to keep quiet, to keep from going public, to stay at Malfoy Manor, richer than before with their galleons.” He releases Draco’s hand, pushing him back with his boot.
“They are even more foolish than you,” his father says, rising. He brushes a hand across the front of his robes, invisible dust, invisible Muggle dust removed.
Draco wants to tell his father he’s no fool. He did it for the family- for his family, to start anew, all those years ago.
There was no need, he thinks.
And the sound of a door swinging open pushes him back to his feet.
3.
No spell is quick enough to stop the sound of Potter’s “Hello!” calling out from the foyer. And even if there was, Draco’s fingers desperately curl around the hilt of his wand, but he can’t move his hand, he can’t form the words.
“Hello?” Potter calls out again. “Malfoy?”
Draco closes his eyes. He cannot, he will not look his father in the eye. The sounds of Potter rummaging around in the closet, untying James’ shoes, scraping sandy trainer soles across the floor draw out the silence descending throughout the rest of the house.
And then it is complete silence, save for the monotonous ticking of the grandfather clock. One second, two second, three.
Draco opens his eyes.
The house doesn’t crash down on him.
But his world just might.
It is Potter who stands in the doorway. Draco catches the last of a brief moment of shock, then Potter whips his wand out and leans back.
“You’re dead,” he hisses, pointing his wand at Draco’s father. He glances around the side of his glasses to Draco, searching for answers, then flashing back to his father. “You’re. Dead.”
This is the only time Draco has ever seen his father at a loss for words. He sits, his mouth open as he breathes slowly, before standing, his hands moving to brush aside Potter’s wand from the air before him.
Potter only presses it closer, walking slowly, circling his father. Stalking the prey. The Auror stalking the Dark wizard, pressing him back towards the wall.
Draco lunges, jumping between them. “Don’t!” he shouts. “Don’t, Potter!”
“What is going on?” Potter says in a low voice.
“Yes, Draco, do tell- what is going on?” he father murmurs. The low chuckle his father makes unsettles Draco’s brief burst, sending him back to the chair, his hands shaking on his wand.
“I see the Ministry lied about you, too, then,” Potter says. He turns to the sound of a noise behind him. Both Draco’s and his father’s eyes follow, seeing James standing, his brow-scrunched and his eyes as big as bludgers.
And he can hear the gears in his father’s mind working, working, narrowing to compliment the slight smirk playing with his mouth. “And is that…your other son, Draco?” he asks as James creeps forward, hiding behind Potter’s leg.
“Yes,” Draco whispers.
His father starts to laugh, a mirthless, cold sound that echoes against the ceiling, that parallels the growing gloaming outside, the sun starting to set in a blood-stained haze across the London skyline. “What have you done to yourself?” he asks, shaking his head. “What have you done to yourself?”
“What do you want?” Potter snaps, narrowing his own eyes. He pulls his wand back out in front of himself.
Draco’s father rolls his eyes. “You child,” he scoffs. “I came for my son,” he says, “but clearly I found something amiss sitting in front of me.”
Draco feels himself leaning forward, his legs clenching together. Inside, he throbs. The pain blooming between his legs, deep in his belly, as though he’s going to stand up and see a puddle of blood where he last sat. A miscarriage of nothing. He holds his breath, the press of his bones too hard, too much to bear. “Father, I-”
“They’re his, aren’t they?” he father asks, his eyes lingering on Potter. “Whatever you did to yourself, it was you with his children- are witches no longer good enough for you, Draco?”
“Shut up!” Potter shouts. “Don’t you dare talk to him about-”
His father waves a hand airily and Potter stops talking, but not from any charm. “Oh, stop your yelling, Potter. Draco can speak for himself. Or have you emasculated even that from him?”
If there was any blood left in his cheeks, Draco might have flushed. Instead, he feels nothing but unending cold and pain prickling every pore of his skin, every inch of his body.
“I did it for our family,” Draco mutters. His voice is hollow when it reaches his ears, lifeless and listless.
“You know nothing of family!” his father snaps. “And you should know enough that he-” his father’s nostrils flare wide as he inhales, pointing at Potter with drawn wand, “-that he ended ours! And you go and consort with him and ruin yourself with him, for him, and now there are his children- what have you done, Draco?”
“Shut up!” Potter shouts. “If you don’t get-”
“Don’t hate me, father,” Draco says, but his words are lost overtop Potter’s shouting, and then the rushing roar of bright green flames and a body tumbling through the fireplace.
Abraxas stands up and brushes his dark robes off. “Hello Grandfather,” he whispers.
4.
He turns to his son, his mouth having dropped open.
“What?” he gapes, just as Potter does in tandem.
“So you must be Draco’s other son,” his father drawls, walking forward and staring down his nose at Abraxas. Abraxas stands up, straightening his back, trying to make himself taller, but Draco’s father is still taller.
“You resemble your father, I see,” his father says, narrowing his eyes toward Potter.
“What did you do, Abraxas?” Potter hisses.
“I didn’t do anything!” Abraxas insists, throwing his hands up into the air. “I swear! I was only curious!”
“Curious about what?” Potter asks.
Abraxas casts Draco a baleful stare. “You never talk about father’s family- almost never- except when you’re mad at each other. I wanted to know what you were hiding.”
“I didn’t hide anything,” Draco says, but his words hang empty in the air when his father raises a brow at him.
“I just wanted to know,” Abraxas says. “You wouldn’t have answered me even if I asked you about it.”
Draco starts, “I would ha-”
But Potter cuts him off, saying, “With good reason.”
“So that’s why you went to Knockturn Alley,” Draco mutters.
Abraxas hangs his head. “I just wanted to know,” he mumbles.
“He went to Knockturn Alley!” Potter shouts. “To do what there? You knew about this, Malfoy?” He shakes his head, his lip curling when Draco looks up to him. “You knew about this?”
Draco says nothing.
His father smirks. “And your secrets come out now. I admit, I only put a tracing charm on him,” he points the tip of his wand toward Abraxas, “because I found his name highly…unusual. And little did I know that it would lead me to Potter. But I see it now.”
“See what, Malfoy?” Potter snarls.
Draco cringes- his name, his father’s name, it doesn’t matter who Potter is talking to. He could be talking to both from the way he glowers under his glasses, his scowl reflected in the windows, the mirror, the way his hair seems to bristle.
Abraxas stands on the edge, scuffing his feet on the floor. Draco jabs his wand into his side, “Why did you do it?” he hisses, but his tone is lost when Abraxas’ brow furrows and for a moment, he has the same lost and lonely expression James sports always.
“I just wanted to know. I just- I just asked a few people about Malfoys and if they knew anything about the family. You wouldn’t have told me. I didn’t know- I didn’t think my grandfather was still alive.”
“Oh, but I am,” his father says. He steps towards Abraxas, who backs up into the doorjamb. He lifts Abraxas’ chin with his forefinger, turning his face from one side to the other. “Yes, you do resemble your father. The poor blood always outs itself.”
“Shut up about him!”
Draco turns to see Pyrrha, walking in from the back door. Her face is red and streaked with tears and her fingernails black with dirt. She had her wand by her side, lifting it slowly. “Shut up about him!” she says, louder. “He’s your blood, too.”
For a second, Draco imagines that his father’s mouth murmurs his mother’s name as Pyrrha comes closer, slowly. She stares his father straight in the eye, her green meeting cold grey. And he starts to soften, releasing Abraxas.
His father says nothing to Pyrrha, but he does say, “And where is this other daughter of yours, Draco? Ought she not join this...reunion?”
He doesn’t need to consider walking upstairs, because he hears a rustle and sees Viola creeping out from behind a large vase. Draco wonders fleetingly how long she has been there, but judging from the wide eyes and thin line of her mouth, she’s heard enough of what has been said.
Not a sound passes until James sniffs behind Potter’s leg. Potter leans down to hand him a Kleenex from his pocket, his eyes never leaving Draco’s father.
“I hope the Ministry is paying you well to keep quiet,” Potter says.
“Not that I need the money,” his father says offhand.
“Funny how you’re so smug still for spending so many years in Azkaban,” Potter adds, smiling darkly.
His father’s eyes widen and his lips purse. He raises his wand and Draco can sense the words on his father’s tongue, just waiting to be said aloud. But instead, he snorts and tucks his wand aside.
“You know where I’ll be, Draco,” he says, turning his back. His robes swirl, a dark dervish in the dim room.
“Don’t hate me, father,” Draco whispers, but it is too late and his father has already left with the crack of Apparation.
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: After Hogwarts, everything changes.
Author's Notes: Thank you so much to my beta, B, without which I wouldn't have had the drive to finish this.
[Part 1][Part 2][Part 3][Part 4][Part 5][Part 6][Part 7][Part 8][Part 9][Part 10]
[Part 11][Part 12][Part 13][Part 14][Part 15][Part 16][Part 17][Part 18][Part 19]
[Part 20][Part 21][Part 22]
1.
In the distance, there is the faint sound of breaking glass. Draco doesn’t realize that his hand is emptied of the soapy dish until he hears the crunch of shards under his father’s boots. He is rooted in place as the swirling scent of his father’s cologne reaches his nose.
He is a child again, on his father’s knee, in his father’s office, touching his father’s objects in the cabinet, learning how to fly a broom as his father watches and nods and tells him to pull back. The smell is strong, like incenses in Knockturn Alley, and rich.
His body falls falls falls and cannot get up, yet he doesn’t move.
“So this is where you have been hiding?” his father says.
No! he screams. “Yes,” he murmurs, his stomach plummeting when his father’s lip curls up, “Muggle scum” on his breath.
Draco watches the scene unfold, much like a program on the telly. He can feel his body standing, ready to slump forward, his mouth open as he stops himself from breathing. This is not real, this dream. He will wake in bed, with Potter beside him, and his father will be dead, food of the fish in the icy northern sea.
But his father simply stands, breathing, as real as Draco is.
“You’re dead,” he manages, choking on the words. His throat has closed up. Bile burns his stomach, rising, rising with a moan, pained and awful and shameful. “You’re a ghost.”
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” his father whispers. His mouth is set in a thin line as Draco nods, once, and too late. His father sits at the edge of the couch, his eyes shifting to the sides, taking in the telly, the Muggle photographs, the door to the kitchen where he can see the microwave, everything, everything Muggle, except for a scrubbed-out cauldron in the bottom of the closet in the backroom.
His fingers touch the edge of a facing chair as he sits himself down onto the cushion, perched on the precipice. His eyes search his father out beneath the new lines in his face, beneath the new glaze over his cold eyes, watching him, roving over him, this house, judging.
“So you married a Muggle,” his father murmurs, stroking the arm of the couch with the tip of his wand. His eyes roll to Draco as he speaks, narrowing them.
“I- no,” Draco says.
“A Muggleborn, then,” his father says. He considers for a moment, his tongue touching his lower lip before he leans closer to Draco. “And you have children with her.”
He can’t bear to deny it, to admit the truth, so he nods, the lump in his throat pressing, and the twisting in his stomach so tight he can hardly focus on anything besides the gut-wrenching agony of these moments. The clock ticks, time spreading into eternity. His father sits in silence, calculating his situation for hours and Draco grows smaller by the second.
He is the child again.
“They’re my family,” he chokes. “They’re-”
“Yes, I see,” his father says. “You have a daughter,” he adds, turning to the entranceway. His eyes move over Pyrrha as she stands awkwardly, holding the doorframe and biting her lip. “And will you introduce us?” his father says, standing up slowly and holding his hand out, palm raised for Pyrrha to take.
Draco swallows the lump in his throat and inhales slowly. “Pyrrha,” he murmurs, nodding to her as she walks forward, casting him a tentative smile. “My father,” he whispers, his breath catching as his father reaches for Pyrrha’s hand and a dark smile curves his lips.
“How old are you?” his father says, sitting down once more, his robes falling over the couch, dark and smooth, rippling at the edges. Draco can see the sheen of the fine cut velvet, the silver thread piping. His own robes, Potter bought them, not cheap, but nothing of the finery of his father.
He feels embarrassed for himself, and even more when he takes in what his father stares at on his daughter. He’s been used to this for years, but her shorts that skim her skin high on her thighs- completely and utterly Muggle, completely and utterly innocent, yet his father wouldn’t know, wouldn’t understand and instead sits up straight and stiff and sneers.
“And her mother- some Muggle bitch?” his father says, his voice low.
“Don’t you dare say that about my-”
“Shut it!” Draco snaps at her. His hand has clenched his wand, a Silencio at the tip of his tongue. “Don’t!” he warns as she lowers her eyes, hurt. Guilt gnaws at his stomach, but nothing like his father could ever cause.
“Does he not-” Pyrrha starts to stay, but stops when Draco glares. His skin feels numb, the line of his lips even more so.
“Isn’t this interesting,” his father says, leaning back on the couch with a cold smile. “You’ve married a Mudblood or Muggle, Draco. Didn’t you remember all those times you promised your mother and I when you were a boy that you would settle for nothing less than your blood deserved?”
He wants to tell his father things have changed, but he can’t open his mouth. He can’t do anything. The words failure and disappointment are written all over the raised brow of his father, the little snorts he makes, the feeling eating him inside out.
“And do you have other siblings?” his father says at last to Pyrrha.
She nods. “Three, yes.”
“I thought as much,” his father says. “Been busy with your wife, then, Draco? Tell me, what are their names?”
Pyrrha’s eyes flit to his. He turns away, nodding slowly. He bites his lip as she opens her mouth. He has never been brave and this, this fear of his father’s disapproval manifest, only proves him the coward Potter accused him of being so many, many years ago.
2.
“I’m the oldest,” Pyrrha says, her voice growing as her words come. “Eighteen.”
“And did you attend…Hogwarts?” his father asks.
Pyrrha nods. “I finished in June.”
“Your father has been busy, then. Only twenty when she was born, Draco?”
Draco says nothing.
“And my brother- he’s sixteen now. And my sister, she’s-”
“DON’T TALK ABOUT ME!”
The sound of thumping upstairs and doors slamming and then Viola stomping downstairs breaks some of the tension rife in the air but only tightens the feeling in Draco’s chest when he sees Viola stalk into the room, hands on her hips, saying “I said my name is Anne now!”
And then she sees his father sitting there across from Draco and Pyrrha. She glances from Draco to his father, her brows knitting and her eyes widening. Draco knows she must see the similarities- how can she not? The pointed faces, the pale hair, the pale skin, the same eyes.
But his father doesn’t see the family resemblance in her. She doesn’t have Pyrrha’s blonde, Pyrrha’s height or grace. She has Potter’s pinched look and Potter’s chin and hair that is neither red nor blonde, but somewhere in between. “And who is this?” he asks Draco.
“My second daughter,” he mumbles. “Viola.”
“Anne,” Viola hisses. “Who’s he?”
Draco feels something shrivel up inside when his father’s lip twitch, forming a bitter smile. But Pyrrha speaks first, saying, “Our grandfather.”
“Sure,” Viola says, pulling back a hanging lock of hair from her eyes. She shrugs and stomps back upstairs, leaving them draped in silence once more as his father stands and examines the room. He walks slowly, not from age, but from casual disgust, Draco knows. The way he taps his wand against the telly screen, the way his nose turns up at the stacks of London newspapers that Potter reads occasionally, which bury under them what few Quidditch magazines Draco might read.
And then his father stops. Draco turns, catching sight of his father in the mirror, his back turned to Draco, swathed in dark robes and silver fastenings, smelling of earthy patchouli like his mother used to burn sometimes in the Manor, scotch and the wood paneling of his office at home, where Draco had come for comfort, for solace, to hide when he read that Daily Prophet exposé.
He hasn’t been there since, but his father must have been.
His father’s shoulder moves under his robes, and he touches something small, picking it up.
Draco sucks in a breath, seeing the reflection of a photograph in the mirror, seeing four grainy faces of his children smiling back from the static image.
He’ll see Potter in them now. He’ll know.
Inside, he is torn between the agonizing disappointment his father exudes for him and the fear that this- this eighteen years with Potter will be discovered. Draco stands up and pushes Pyrrha aside, flicking his wand as he says, “Accio photograph!”
The photo zooms from his father’s hand and hits Draco square in the stomach. He doubles over, winded for a moment, but nothing worse than the wrenching inside himself these long, long minutes since his father showed up.
“Are you…ashamed of your children?” his father drawls, his back to Draco.
He can hear Pyrrha gasp at the words. He can feel her stare, boring into his brain, his heart, his soul, asking him too if he is ashamed.
And he can hear other noises- the sounds of Viola upstairs, flushing toilets and slamming doors, the low rumble of her music seeping through the floor as she hides in her room. He can hear Muggle cars on the roadway outside the house, driving by, unknowing witnesses to the scene through the large front window, father and son and granddaughter, meeting for the first time.
He doesn’t answer.
This, he knows, hurts the most. Pyrrha stands up, covering her mouth with a hand, and leaves, rushing through the house to the backdoor, slamming that in turn as she retreats to the garden, her sanctuary of flowers, just like his mother had hers.
“She looks like your mother,” his father says under his breath. “My Narcissa.”
“I tried to save her-”
His father says nothing, his eyes growing dark with an impermeable blankness. Draco’s heart pounds, his chest swelling, rising into his ribs, pressing uncomfortably, so much so that he feels he can hardly breathe anymore, though his exhaling whistles through his nose.
“You’re replaced your family with another,” his father says. “Half-bloods.”
Draco clutches the arm of the chair, rubbing his sweaty palms into the coarse material, digging his fingernails into the fibre. Something builds inside him, bursting forth when he snaps, “They’re your blood too!”
His father changes. “Oh, really?” he murmurs, his voice silken and low.
Draco backs down, retreating, inching himself deeper into the back of the chair, willing his words to stop echoing in his ears, to stop being burned onto his tongue. “Don’t hate me, father,” he says weakly.
“What has this world done to you?” his father says, glancing around at the sounds from the motorways outside. “To have made you so…cowardly of your own family?”
“I’m not!” Draco insists, but his voice cracks on the words. The shame, the anger at himself deepens and his stomach twists with disgust. “You- they said you were dead,” he mumbles. “I- I thought you were dead, that I was the last Mal-”
“The last Malfoy? No, far from it, Draco.” His father purses his lips, tracing his bottom lip with a finger as he leans back. “The Ministry would like to think I’m dead, wouldn’t they?”
“There was the scandal and Po- they said you were dead. Thrown into the sea.”
His father smiles. “Draco, you fool. You naïve fool. The wardens were lax- not everyone they threw into the sea was dead. I sit before you- am I dead?” He holds out his hand, beckoning Draco with curled fingers. “Am I not as real as you?”
Reluctant, Draco reaches out. His father’s hand is warm and hard, solid and real. He jerks his hand back, clenched around Draco’s wrist as he pulls Draco toward him. Draco stumbles, falling to his knees across the carpet as his father hisses, “They thought they could be rid of me, but instead they pay me to keep quiet, to keep from going public, to stay at Malfoy Manor, richer than before with their galleons.” He releases Draco’s hand, pushing him back with his boot.
“They are even more foolish than you,” his father says, rising. He brushes a hand across the front of his robes, invisible dust, invisible Muggle dust removed.
Draco wants to tell his father he’s no fool. He did it for the family- for his family, to start anew, all those years ago.
There was no need, he thinks.
And the sound of a door swinging open pushes him back to his feet.
3.
No spell is quick enough to stop the sound of Potter’s “Hello!” calling out from the foyer. And even if there was, Draco’s fingers desperately curl around the hilt of his wand, but he can’t move his hand, he can’t form the words.
“Hello?” Potter calls out again. “Malfoy?”
Draco closes his eyes. He cannot, he will not look his father in the eye. The sounds of Potter rummaging around in the closet, untying James’ shoes, scraping sandy trainer soles across the floor draw out the silence descending throughout the rest of the house.
And then it is complete silence, save for the monotonous ticking of the grandfather clock. One second, two second, three.
Draco opens his eyes.
The house doesn’t crash down on him.
But his world just might.
It is Potter who stands in the doorway. Draco catches the last of a brief moment of shock, then Potter whips his wand out and leans back.
“You’re dead,” he hisses, pointing his wand at Draco’s father. He glances around the side of his glasses to Draco, searching for answers, then flashing back to his father. “You’re. Dead.”
This is the only time Draco has ever seen his father at a loss for words. He sits, his mouth open as he breathes slowly, before standing, his hands moving to brush aside Potter’s wand from the air before him.
Potter only presses it closer, walking slowly, circling his father. Stalking the prey. The Auror stalking the Dark wizard, pressing him back towards the wall.
Draco lunges, jumping between them. “Don’t!” he shouts. “Don’t, Potter!”
“What is going on?” Potter says in a low voice.
“Yes, Draco, do tell- what is going on?” he father murmurs. The low chuckle his father makes unsettles Draco’s brief burst, sending him back to the chair, his hands shaking on his wand.
“I see the Ministry lied about you, too, then,” Potter says. He turns to the sound of a noise behind him. Both Draco’s and his father’s eyes follow, seeing James standing, his brow-scrunched and his eyes as big as bludgers.
And he can hear the gears in his father’s mind working, working, narrowing to compliment the slight smirk playing with his mouth. “And is that…your other son, Draco?” he asks as James creeps forward, hiding behind Potter’s leg.
“Yes,” Draco whispers.
His father starts to laugh, a mirthless, cold sound that echoes against the ceiling, that parallels the growing gloaming outside, the sun starting to set in a blood-stained haze across the London skyline. “What have you done to yourself?” he asks, shaking his head. “What have you done to yourself?”
“What do you want?” Potter snaps, narrowing his own eyes. He pulls his wand back out in front of himself.
Draco’s father rolls his eyes. “You child,” he scoffs. “I came for my son,” he says, “but clearly I found something amiss sitting in front of me.”
Draco feels himself leaning forward, his legs clenching together. Inside, he throbs. The pain blooming between his legs, deep in his belly, as though he’s going to stand up and see a puddle of blood where he last sat. A miscarriage of nothing. He holds his breath, the press of his bones too hard, too much to bear. “Father, I-”
“They’re his, aren’t they?” he father asks, his eyes lingering on Potter. “Whatever you did to yourself, it was you with his children- are witches no longer good enough for you, Draco?”
“Shut up!” Potter shouts. “Don’t you dare talk to him about-”
His father waves a hand airily and Potter stops talking, but not from any charm. “Oh, stop your yelling, Potter. Draco can speak for himself. Or have you emasculated even that from him?”
If there was any blood left in his cheeks, Draco might have flushed. Instead, he feels nothing but unending cold and pain prickling every pore of his skin, every inch of his body.
“I did it for our family,” Draco mutters. His voice is hollow when it reaches his ears, lifeless and listless.
“You know nothing of family!” his father snaps. “And you should know enough that he-” his father’s nostrils flare wide as he inhales, pointing at Potter with drawn wand, “-that he ended ours! And you go and consort with him and ruin yourself with him, for him, and now there are his children- what have you done, Draco?”
“Shut up!” Potter shouts. “If you don’t get-”
“Don’t hate me, father,” Draco says, but his words are lost overtop Potter’s shouting, and then the rushing roar of bright green flames and a body tumbling through the fireplace.
Abraxas stands up and brushes his dark robes off. “Hello Grandfather,” he whispers.
4.
He turns to his son, his mouth having dropped open.
“What?” he gapes, just as Potter does in tandem.
“So you must be Draco’s other son,” his father drawls, walking forward and staring down his nose at Abraxas. Abraxas stands up, straightening his back, trying to make himself taller, but Draco’s father is still taller.
“You resemble your father, I see,” his father says, narrowing his eyes toward Potter.
“What did you do, Abraxas?” Potter hisses.
“I didn’t do anything!” Abraxas insists, throwing his hands up into the air. “I swear! I was only curious!”
“Curious about what?” Potter asks.
Abraxas casts Draco a baleful stare. “You never talk about father’s family- almost never- except when you’re mad at each other. I wanted to know what you were hiding.”
“I didn’t hide anything,” Draco says, but his words hang empty in the air when his father raises a brow at him.
“I just wanted to know,” Abraxas says. “You wouldn’t have answered me even if I asked you about it.”
Draco starts, “I would ha-”
But Potter cuts him off, saying, “With good reason.”
“So that’s why you went to Knockturn Alley,” Draco mutters.
Abraxas hangs his head. “I just wanted to know,” he mumbles.
“He went to Knockturn Alley!” Potter shouts. “To do what there? You knew about this, Malfoy?” He shakes his head, his lip curling when Draco looks up to him. “You knew about this?”
Draco says nothing.
His father smirks. “And your secrets come out now. I admit, I only put a tracing charm on him,” he points the tip of his wand toward Abraxas, “because I found his name highly…unusual. And little did I know that it would lead me to Potter. But I see it now.”
“See what, Malfoy?” Potter snarls.
Draco cringes- his name, his father’s name, it doesn’t matter who Potter is talking to. He could be talking to both from the way he glowers under his glasses, his scowl reflected in the windows, the mirror, the way his hair seems to bristle.
Abraxas stands on the edge, scuffing his feet on the floor. Draco jabs his wand into his side, “Why did you do it?” he hisses, but his tone is lost when Abraxas’ brow furrows and for a moment, he has the same lost and lonely expression James sports always.
“I just wanted to know. I just- I just asked a few people about Malfoys and if they knew anything about the family. You wouldn’t have told me. I didn’t know- I didn’t think my grandfather was still alive.”
“Oh, but I am,” his father says. He steps towards Abraxas, who backs up into the doorjamb. He lifts Abraxas’ chin with his forefinger, turning his face from one side to the other. “Yes, you do resemble your father. The poor blood always outs itself.”
“Shut up about him!”
Draco turns to see Pyrrha, walking in from the back door. Her face is red and streaked with tears and her fingernails black with dirt. She had her wand by her side, lifting it slowly. “Shut up about him!” she says, louder. “He’s your blood, too.”
For a second, Draco imagines that his father’s mouth murmurs his mother’s name as Pyrrha comes closer, slowly. She stares his father straight in the eye, her green meeting cold grey. And he starts to soften, releasing Abraxas.
His father says nothing to Pyrrha, but he does say, “And where is this other daughter of yours, Draco? Ought she not join this...reunion?”
He doesn’t need to consider walking upstairs, because he hears a rustle and sees Viola creeping out from behind a large vase. Draco wonders fleetingly how long she has been there, but judging from the wide eyes and thin line of her mouth, she’s heard enough of what has been said.
Not a sound passes until James sniffs behind Potter’s leg. Potter leans down to hand him a Kleenex from his pocket, his eyes never leaving Draco’s father.
“I hope the Ministry is paying you well to keep quiet,” Potter says.
“Not that I need the money,” his father says offhand.
“Funny how you’re so smug still for spending so many years in Azkaban,” Potter adds, smiling darkly.
His father’s eyes widen and his lips purse. He raises his wand and Draco can sense the words on his father’s tongue, just waiting to be said aloud. But instead, he snorts and tucks his wand aside.
“You know where I’ll be, Draco,” he says, turning his back. His robes swirl, a dark dervish in the dim room.
“Don’t hate me, father,” Draco whispers, but it is too late and his father has already left with the crack of Apparation.