Chapter Eighty-Four of IAATB: A Toast to the Swift Years
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Chapter Eighty-Four: A Toast to the Swift Years
Draco stepped back and eyed the chain on the wall, then nodded. Linked silver rings topped with blue-gray stones, in the colors of the old Malfoy crest, glinted and turned in small half-circles. The edges of their settings sealed together with clever hooks not visible from the ground, and the effect was of a familiar decoration turned strange by the array.
Draco turned, directing his gaze across the room. It was not, of course, the size of the great receiving hall at Malfoy Manor, but Harry had not wanted to hold this celebration in the place where Medusa and Eos Rosier-Henlin died, and Draco had agreed with him. So they had chosen another Malfoy house, one allowed to lapse into disrepair as the family grew smaller or lost money, and then cleaned it themselves with the aid of more household charms than Draco had known existed. This room, with Harry’s magic to change the color of the walls and the tiles, had become a dark blue sanctuary with chains of silver rings along the walls, and a small and tasteful banner announcing the celebration of Draco’s eighteenth birthday. It wouldn’t hold everyone who might expect to be invited-all the newspaper reporters and a good number of Ministry officials, for example-but Draco would say he wanted this to remain a small, semi-private gathering. That would reduce the crowd and increase the smugness of those who managed to secure an invitation.
“Draco.”
His father’s voice could once have produced a stiffening in his back and a rushing sensation in his mind, as Draco thought of every argument they could have and ways to step around it. Now, he cocked his head and looked over his shoulder. “Father,” he said. “Have you come to wish me well?”
Lucius shook his head briskly and extended a box in his hands. “I wished to give you your gift in private,” he said.
Draco drew out his wand and cast several spells that would check for hexes, his eyes never leaving his father’s. Far from being offended, Lucius looked pleased. He would have been displeased if his son were so stupid as to trust him without thought.
Nothing showed up, and Draco took the box away from his father and hefted it. It was fairly small, whatever it was, and flat. A book? For a moment, Draco’s mind returned to Tom Riddle’s diary, which his father had ended up giving to Harry in second year, and he caught his breath.
Then he shook his head and slit the dark blue paper with a soft Diffindo, opening the box a moment later.
Inside, a flat plaque of pale metal, probably platinum, looked up at him. Seven lines of writing graced it, carved letters filled with silver. Draco reached down and traced the first with a finger, then looked at Lucius for an explanation.
“These are seven things I have thought of you over the years,” said Lucius, without preamble, “from the time you were eleven and in your first year at Hogwarts until now. Though you will finish your NEWTS out of school, this is still, technically, the last year you would have been at school, and when you left it, you would have been accounted an adult. This is a toast to the swift years, Draco, a record of things I have thought and no longer think, or may change my mind about in the future.” And then he turned and walked out of the room, as if he could not bear to share it with his son a moment longer.
Draco stared after him, then turned and read the seven lines. They went in chronological order, as he had suspected, with the first line of writing depicting his first year and the bottom line of writing his last one. No other interpretation made sense. Each was, at the most, a few sentences long.
Too bright, too curious, and too obsessed with the Potter boy. I should have released this butterfly from the Manor’s cocoon before this. He might at least have tested his wings against the wind, and if they tattered, I should have been there to rescue him from such mistakes as he will now make.
Even butterflies can dance.
Narcissa has told me about the unconscious effects of the Potter boy’s magic and how they might have compelled Draco to act unlike himself. I wish I could believe her, but I cannot. If Draco allows his mind to be bent that much, then the weakness is in himself.
The butterfly sheds his wings, and I see the beginnings of a falcon. I wish I could know when that egg might hatch and the whole bird come forth, so that I can see his shape. At the least he will have a powerful protector in the Potter boy, whom he has convinced to value him above all people in the world.
The falcon emerges, and is a stronger flyer than I thought him.
I tried to tame Draco on account of his weakness, only to have him strike back and expose the weaknesses in myself. That is unforgivable-on both of our parts.
My son has power, and strength, and might, and this falcon is more of Narcissa’s training than mine. She had the sense to set him free while I was still struggling with the jesses.
Draco closed his eyes and stood still for a moment. He wished he could go after his father and confront him about the lines, but he knew what would happen if he did. Lucius would stare at him coldly and deny that anything important had passed between them, and that might be the route to shut down the further intercourse with his father that was opening, slowly and cautiously, back up. Draco would have to live with the knowledge that his father had thought these things, and the reactions of anyone he wanted to show them to. But he could not discuss them with Lucius.
If Lucius Malfoy confessed his mistakes, he must do it in such a manner that it was impossible to hold the confessions over his head.
Abruptly, Draco strode out of the hall, and kept walking until he reached the front steps of the house. It was not far off sunrise, and the air had softened and warmed considerably from May. Early June, without a trace of snow. Draco sat down, put his arms on his knees, and buried his head in them.
My father sees me as all three.
It was the distinction he had once mentioned to Harry, the rarest distinction in Lucius Malfoy’s lexicon. Draco had never dreamed that his father would apply it to him.
And then there are people who are powerful, and strong, and mighty. That means they have this kind of wild beauty that unites the other qualities and sends them flowing above their heads, flapping like a banner, calling other people to notice them. My father didn't think might was something you could be born with, or even decide to develop. You had to climb to meet it, and it's so tiring to live life at that level that most people never make it.
He wondered for a moment where Lucius thought he had forged the ability to keep living life at that level, and then shook his head, his hair brushing against his arms. That was another thing he would never know the answer to. Lucius would consider it a weakness to acknowledge that he’d written that last line, let alone acknowledge what it meant. Draco was sure he must have done the carving himself; he would have had to kill any craftsman who did it, not trusting to an Obliviate.
Draco knew he bore Harry’s regard, which was a struggle enough to live up to. He had reckoned he’d long ago forfeited his father’s, and now here it was, back again, tugging Narcissa’s legacy in its train like a reminder.
He was-
He was more than he had thought, than many people thought him.
Draco knew he wasn’t what many people would think of as moral. He didn’t see why he should demonstrate loyalty, or consideration, or love, to most of the world. They had to prove that they were worthy of it, by intimidating him or demonstrating a constant attachment and regard to him while, at the same time, being worthy of affection and regard themselves. There were few people like that. Michael Rosier-Henlin had certainly not been one of them. Draco was not above doing things for political partners that would benefit him as well, but they were badly mistaken if they thought that implied that he liked them.
He was selfish, and he would use Dark spells that Harry would never consider, and he thought Harry’s delicacy on matters political was almost too much to be borne. He was not vates, or anything like it. He was not the spoiled heir of the Malfoy line that he could have grown up to be, either, or Lucius’s mindless puppet-the memory of the Imbolc ritual and the life he might have led without Harry pricked him then-but he was not the perfect, shining partner he knew many people thought should have stood at Harry’s side.
He was someone who saw his own imperfections in the eyes of the world and could face them unflinchingly, pretending to correct them if it made sense to do so, but most of the time changing permanently only if they hurt someone he loved. And then he made the changes with speed and power. The rest of the time-well, Harry had once accused him of laziness, but Draco preferred to think of it as the law of conservation of effort. He didn’t need to please those who disapproved of him so thoroughly they would never work with him, so why should he try?
Draco lifted his head, and gave a hard little smile that no one but him was there to see.
I like myself, and don’t care if I’m likeable. I don’t plan to change right now. I may change in the future. No one can predict it. Harry is the only one who can demand it, and even he can’t dictate its course.
I’m what I want to be and what I need to be for this phase of my life.
Draco rose to his feet, carefully shrinking the plaque with a spell and tucking it into his robe pocket. He needed to meet Harry at Silver-Mirror to discuss the catering for the celebration, and was already a few minutes late. He liked the idea of showing up now and letting Harry fuss over and at him.
That’s the way that I’m most different from my father, and even my mother. My mother planned for years in advance. My father makes plans on a smaller scale than that, but then he assumes that people will fall into place. I plan as I need to, in the moment and across years and in all the times in between. I can accept that change is necessary, and adapt to it when it comes.
If I’m not perfect now, I’ll change until I am.
Draco lifted his head, challenging anyone who might watch him invisibly or from a distance in the way he moved, and Apparated home.