What We Fear
Okay so I just found this as part of my Writing Christmas Card Fic and Clearing My Hard Drive tasks for today. No idea where this came from but I’m posting it!
Title: What We Fear
Word count: ~300
Characters/pairings: Draco, Harry
Rating: U
Summary: Draco’s Boggart used to be his father.
Warnings: Implied AU
Disclaimer: The boys and girls belong to JKR, even though I’m often much nicer to them than she is.
Author’s Notes: Random Draco-gen inspired by a conversation about Draco’s Boggart. Title comes from Measure to Measure.
“What’s your Boggart, Malfoy?” Potter asks, his glasses glinting from the candlelight in Grimmauld Place’s kitchen.
When Draco was thirteen and bringing teachers down for his own amusement was important, Lupin taught the Slytherins about Boggarts.
Draco has never forgotten that lesson, because when his father stepped out of the wardrobe he froze. He simply could not aim a wand at his father, no matter that this wasn’t really Lucius Malfoy, or even that this particular incarnation of him was tapping his cane menacingly against one hand, eyes cold. He couldn’t do it.
And then after Lupin had stepped forward, the look of concern and residual shock in the teacher’s eyes, and his gentle questions after the lesson about did Draco realise beating a child was always wrong, and did he want to say anything?
“It was my father before,” Draco says. “It’s different now.”
“Uh-huh?” Potter obviously thinks it must be Voldemort, after everything that’s happened, after his threats on learning of Draco’s treachery.
“Now it’s my mother.” Draco gets up from the table and leaves, not wanting to look at Potter’s shocked face, or to explain. To have to see that image pasted behind his eyes again.
The Boggart he fought two weeks ago was not his father, angry. It was his mother.
Dead.
And Draco doesn’t want to think about the chances of his worst fear coming true.
Title: What We Fear
Word count: ~300
Characters/pairings: Draco, Harry
Rating: U
Summary: Draco’s Boggart used to be his father.
Warnings: Implied AU
Disclaimer: The boys and girls belong to JKR, even though I’m often much nicer to them than she is.
Author’s Notes: Random Draco-gen inspired by a conversation about Draco’s Boggart. Title comes from Measure to Measure.
“What’s your Boggart, Malfoy?” Potter asks, his glasses glinting from the candlelight in Grimmauld Place’s kitchen.
When Draco was thirteen and bringing teachers down for his own amusement was important, Lupin taught the Slytherins about Boggarts.
Draco has never forgotten that lesson, because when his father stepped out of the wardrobe he froze. He simply could not aim a wand at his father, no matter that this wasn’t really Lucius Malfoy, or even that this particular incarnation of him was tapping his cane menacingly against one hand, eyes cold. He couldn’t do it.
And then after Lupin had stepped forward, the look of concern and residual shock in the teacher’s eyes, and his gentle questions after the lesson about did Draco realise beating a child was always wrong, and did he want to say anything?
“It was my father before,” Draco says. “It’s different now.”
“Uh-huh?” Potter obviously thinks it must be Voldemort, after everything that’s happened, after his threats on learning of Draco’s treachery.
“Now it’s my mother.” Draco gets up from the table and leaves, not wanting to look at Potter’s shocked face, or to explain. To have to see that image pasted behind his eyes again.
The Boggart he fought two weeks ago was not his father, angry. It was his mother.
Dead.
And Draco doesn’t want to think about the chances of his worst fear coming true.