Roses, Scars, and Dancing Monkeys
With copious amounts of murtlap paste and enough ditany to heal a hippogriff attack, Draco’s burns from the spirit battle are fully healed, faded enough that a weak glamour charm can easily conceal them. His skin, slightly discoloured, is textured and unfamiliar, but at least it doesn't hurt anymore. The pain was more than his Malfoy sensibilities could easily tolerate, but it was worth it—for her. From Pansy’s sheer force of will and Draco tentatively dipping into blood-traitorism like an unwatched child with grubby, icing covered fingers at a patisserie, Hermione’s blood status has lost the frantic fascination it once held in the shining eyes of Hogwarts’ gossip-mongers.
His hands look like they could belong to someone else, a thought that prompts a rapid fire flurry of emotions: existential dread, followed closely by pride and horror, only to be swallowed by the comforting, fuzzy silence of occlumency.
“Draco,” someone is saying.
Mother strikes a regal pose against the backdrop of the setting sun. The sherbet orange sky and last golden rays of sunlight reflect off of the two streaks of platinum white hair framing her face. She guides him, her hand linked into the crook of his elbow, along the white gravel path that meanders around the grounds, through carefully trimmed shrubbery and manicured flower beds.
“Fresh air and roses are the best company for weary souls.” Mother takes a long breath. She offers a small smile. “Are you excited to see your friends next week?”
“I suppose so.” Draco kicks at the gravel with the toe of his boot. “It hasn’t been long enough to miss anyone.”
His statement isn’t entirely true. It’s not that he misses Hermione. She just happens to be running constant laps in his mind. A vicious cycle that always ends with a replay of their first and only kiss, complete with quidditch-style commentary, breaking down the play by play in a voice that sounds suspiciously like Lee Jordan.
She grabs his hand… Ladies and gentlemen, in a world record breaking play, Hermione Granger just kissed the palm of Draco Malfoy’s hand. He’s leaning forward now, saying something we can’t hear in the stands, but… oh, she must like it. She’s blushing now—she’s looking at him. She’s looking at his lips. He’s—this is incredible! Malfoy has leaned in completely and has kissed her! AND IS SHE RECIPROCATING? That’s the game! THAT’S THE GAME! In an unheard of feat of blood-defying, conspiratorial madness and teenage hormones, Granger is kissing him back. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s the 1994 final and Malfoy has won!
“...owled this afternoon.”
“Hmm?” says Draco, finding himself unfortunately still in the present, and not in a dimly lit and abandoned classroom with Hermione.
“Theodore is coming before the celebration,” Mother repeats, her eyes narrowing. “Nott Sr. owled this afternoon.”
“Oh,” says Draco. “That’s odd, isn’t it? He usually doesn’t stay with us until later in the summer.”
Theo has spent every Hogwarts summer in the Manor, and even before first year, he was alway hanging around—their friendship always having been predicated on Mother’s pity and sense of responsibility. After Theo’s own mother died, and especially since inferring the distinct lack of fatherly care Nott Sr. is prone to provide, Mother scooped him up like a lost puppy. However much Mother would like for Theo to change his name to Malfoy and stay as much as possible, most summers Theo at least spent a whole month at his own manor, skirting around and avoiding his father at all costs, until Narcissa could whisk him away to the safety of Malfoy Manor. Next week is the summer solstice. It’s far too soon to expect Theo.
“Mother…” He dislikes her silence, the way it lingers heavy, like fog, between them. “What happened?”
She sniffs. Presses her lips together. “Nott surely didn’t tell me anything.”
He keeps kicking the gravel, sending stones to roll off the path into the rose beds. Mother’s left eye twitches, and Draco stops dragging his feet, walking like a gentleman like Etiquette Mistress (under the ever present and watchful eye of Mother) taught him . “But you have your suspicions,” he says.
Mother trails her index finger over the white petals of a rose, delaying her response. “Perhaps… There is strain between him and his father. Nott Sr. seemed… One could infer that he is more disappointed than usual with his child.”
He clears his throat. “Could one infer what specifically he found fault with?”
Mother levels a cool look on Draco, the type of look meant to make her son feel like a very small child. This look does not, however, elicit the desired effect. Draco feels at best, filled with mild annoyance that his mother, a grown woman who claims to love him, refuses to talk in anything but riddles and hypotheticals, as if she’s some Rumpelstiltskin or sphinx, and at worst, a cold sense of thickening dread in the pit of his stomach, because he fears he knows where this conversation is heading.
“Maybe it was his choice in companionship.”
“Are… are you?”
Her eyes flash. “Am I what, my Dragon?”
“Disappointed in Theo’s choices… in companionship?”
She pulls him to a stop, and the corner of her mouth quirks as she holds his gaze a moment too long to be entirely comfortable. Finally, she begins walking again, leading him along the idyllic garden path, as if they are talking about something trivial, like what shinanigens the elves have caused recently or what flavour of cake Trinket has picked for the Midsummer party next week. Merlin, he would kill for elf drama right now.
“Attachment is always a dangerous thing, my dear,” she says, “regardless who you attach yourself to. There is always a price to pay, and some prices are higher than others.”
“Father has agreed to house Theo? Even with his… choice of attachments?”
“Your father knows not to cross me,” she smirks. “And besides, it would be unforgivable, if it were mudbloods and blood-traitors Theo surrounded himself with, yet, it seems impossible to say for sure that they are. And–” She squeezes his arm. “Half bloods can be very powerful. If they learn our ways, their contaminated blood can be overlooked.”
She meets his eyes again, glittering and dangerous. She guides them to a wooden bench, and they sit, overlooking the rose garden. The floral scent is overpowering, and Draco focuses on it, folding away his tumbling thoughts until his head feels cold and empty. Mother watches him, lips pursed.
“Was it hard, my Dragon, to separate yourself from your friends last year?” Her voice is soft, like a velvet lined knife box.
Was it hard, cloaking his head in ice to freeze out any feeling of familiarity? Thinking about her in slurs? Feeding into the rumours? Being a top shelf arsehole? No. It was painfully, disgustingly, easy.
“She’s not my friend,” he says, wishing the breeze was strong enough to whisk his words away. Wishing he could just go back to school already and escape the Manor and his parents. Wishing his mother wouldn’t look at him with that revolting mix of pity and shame.
“I thought you learned by now not to lie to me, my Dragon.”
“I did what Father asked. I cut her out.”
“And yet,” Mother says, taking his hand, “she lingers in your heart, does she not?”
She runs her fingers over the healed pock marks on his palm and wrist, as if searching for the truth in his burn scars. He pulls away, trying to hide the damning evidence.
“She’s a powerful halfblood.” His voice sounds dead from his occlumency. Mother must hear it. Merlin, he’s fucked. He wipes his hands on the side of his robes. “And we mostly just studied together, in first and second year. There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing that can’t be… overlooked.”
She nods and gazes out across the garden, a sea of white roses swaying in the breeze. The Manor in the background, sits half a kilometre away like a vulture on a hill.
“Maybe so. If it were up to me, I would say nothing about it.” She sends him a side-eye, which he ignores. “I’ve always held the firm belief that men and women can form platonic regard for each other without the fear of romance.”
“Is it? Up to you?”
“Your father, he is… willing to overlook some things, but disobedience is not one.”
“Mum…”
“Draco.” She shakes her head, inspecting the roses to her other side with great interest. “Sometimes the price we pay for attachments, sometimes it’s too great. And sometimes it is not us that suffers, do you understand?” She looks at him, but he can’t meet her eyes. “You’ve made a grave error in judgement, my Dragon, and I wish there was…” Her face stills, and he can almost see her walls clicking back into place. “It’s not me that you need to convince of your detachment.”
They sit in silence for what feels like an eon, and Draco tracks the shadows as they lengthen on the white gravelled path. He unravels her words, tries to make sense of them. You would think, after a childhood raised in half statements and double meanings, that he would be quicker with the uptake, but Mother revels in being an elusive witch. It’s clear that she’s trying to warn him about something—something Father is planning.
He takes the memory of the kiss, and he folds it. The almost kiss in the tunnel—he folds it. Their conversation in the piano parlour, where he tried to apologise—he folds it. Holding her hand at Daphne’s party—he folds it. Project Hyena, and their conversation after—he folds it. The treasured slap by the frozen, Black lake—he folds it. He envisions an envelope, thick cardstock, periwinkle blue, like the threadbare couch in the Room of Requirement, with the label, ‘A Grave Error in Judgement’ and carefully stows the folded photographs one at a time. He opens his trunk. The envelope is placed at the very bottom. He places it under ‘Mud on the Wall,’ and ‘Mudblood Evidence.’
His vision swims into focus, and he finds Mother’s eyes fixed on him again.
“Do you remember your aunt Bellarix?”
Just flashes—memories, fuzzy and incorporeal, like half-forgotten dreams. Dark eyes, a cackling laugh, his father’s upper lip, curled in thinly veiled disgust when he looked at her. Why is Mother dredging up more bad memories?
“Not really. I was young when she was caught.”
“You were five.” The wind blows her hair out of place, and Mother sighs, running her hands over it to fix it, dark and light strands pushed back down into place. “The war stretched on, even after the Dark Lord fell, and Bella was his most devoted follower. She was always a loyal person, but that loyalty— it was twisted and warped with the Dark Lord. She loved him, Draco. She was his protege. She mastered the ancient arts under his instruction, but she was never the same after he fell. She was driven with an all consuming rage, it made her… unpredictable. People like to call us Blacks’ insane. They say it runs in our family. Maybe it does. WIth his loss, the darkness surely brought it out in her.”
He studies Mother, but finds nothing but blank walls. “Why are you telling me this?”
“At Hogwarts, Mona DiMaggio was her best friend. I believe you know her daughters?”
Draco shakes his head. His brain is too empty to remember family trees.
“I don’t know what I pay your History and Culture tutor for every summer,” she chides. “The Greengrass girls.”
“Oh. Daphne and Astoria, yes.”
“Bella didn’t have compassion for weakness except with Mona. She had a condition, one that was transmitted to her eldest daughter in her passing.”
Blood, pouring from her eyes, nose, and ears. Theo, what’s happening to me? Granger, panicking, high off her broom on Blaise’s stupid potion.
“A blood curse,” he says. “I saw it manafest.”
Her lips purse, and her features are pinched. “It’s not a curse, Draco.”
“I don’t understand. It killed her.”
“Mona was always timid. She was spoken over and ignored. She never advocated for herself or her opinions. And she was weak. She had barely any magic…”
The sun disappears over the horizon, and twilight looks harsh on Mother’s cold face. She looks wraith-like, ghostly.
“There is a binding ritual that some of the old families favour,” she continues. “It’s soul magic, ancient. A spirit is tied to the lifeforce of a witch or wizard. Their magical reservoir becomes much greater, and they can safely use the darkest of curses without facing addiction or contamination. The ritual is called the Eidolon . The Dark Lord despised it. The Blacks, as well, would never permit such a ritual. Toujours Pur, you understand.”
Draco nods, shivering. The Black family motto, Toujours Pur. ‘Always Pure.’
The grounds are too cold. The sky is suddenly too dark. Draco kicks his feet at the sparklingly white gravel, burying the toes of his boots like an ostrich burying its head in the sand.
“The Malfoys,” she is saying, “have never had the same aversion to creature magic. If it’s powerful and pragmatic, they tend to support it. Other families—they look down upon it, yet when they sire children with tepid magic, this is a way to save face. It’s a risk though, to force the ritual on a weak child. There needs to be a strength of will, or the result will be an abomination. If the spirit does not integrate to the witch or wizard’s will, it becomes parasitic and binds to the blood instead of the soul, eventually sapping their lifeforce. Blood finds blood, and the spirit will seek to attach itself to another host.”
“You’re saying Daphne’s mother underwent this—this Eidolon , and it went bad? And when it finally killed her, the spirit passed to Daphne?”
Does Theo know this? Does Daphne?
“Yes.” Her voice is clipped. Her face is deathly still.
“I don’t understand, why are you telling me this?”
He lets her take his hand, and she squeezes, tracing again his burn scars with her thumb. “Bella was driven insane without the Eidolon , and Mona was driven insane with it. Sometimes the price of the dark arts is too steep. Do you understand, my Dragon? I do not want you to turn out like either of them.”
“Yes Mother.” He swallows and looks away, still holding her hand tightly.
“Enough talk. Tuck away what I told you. I’ll leave you here with your thoughts. You need to work on your tells. Your gift is too apparent for those who know to look for it.”
He nods. Hermi–Granger figured it out.
He sits, surrounded by white roses, contemplating her words, as she walks away, her dark hair billowing in the breeze.
***
That night, Draco can’t sleep. He tosses for hours before deciding to get back up. Maybe he’ll go find Trinket and steal some cake.
In the belly of the Manor, moonlight finds no windows to knock on, and darkness shrouds the gilded interior. It’s more fortress than house, not by architectural design, but by magic. You can often hear Dumbledore’s flobber-brained followers parroting back the pithy platitude that Hogwarts is the safest place in the UK, but Draco knows better.
Architecturally, it’s an Elizabethean, renaissance-style mansion built in the late sixteenth century, not even half as old as Hogwarts. It’s a museum of a house, filled with rooms that expand like a labyrinth, all steeped in history and culture. In the daylight, the manor is vibrant with rich colour and an opulence that can only be achieved by centuries of wealth.
In the darkness, the opulence is something that can be felt in the vacuum of high ceilings and the familiar echoing tap of shoes on marble tiled floors. Draco’s wand-light catches on crystal strings from high hanging chandeliers. He can feel magic humming around him and rushing through him, matching pace with his thrumming heartbeat and quiet breath.
Magic is armour to the Manor’s walls and lifeblood to its chambers. It is magic so old and complex that it rears its head in near sentience, breathing life into the Manor’s body, its muraled ceilings, imported carpets, and prized sixteenth century tapestries. It’s the residual life of long dead Malfoys, their darkness leaving an imprint on the house. It’s a darkness made familiar by blood.
The blood wards are meant to calm Malfoys. The Manor is supposed to feel like an extension of their own bodies, of their own magic. And it does for Draco. But it feels simultaneously wrong.
It must be because of the Hyena.
The Manor calls to the darkness in his blood.
The Manor never felt like this before. Like it was watching him. The prickle on the back of his neck, the hair raising certainty that something is there waiting, something lurking. He can feel it pulsing in his blood.
It had been the first dark magic that he had done, when he cursed the Hyena. Now he understands Father’s whinging monologues. His warnings, his reveries.
Draco had never felt more alive, more powerful.
And then the withdrawal.
How many times had he almost cursed someone in the wake of that night? The impulse had been strong, almost an imperative. When Blaise made veiled commentary on Draco’s interest in Hermione, Draco had almost cursed him right there, in the middle of the common room, onlookers be damned.
Maybe that’s why the Manor feels wrong.
Maybe it can smell the blood-traitorship on him.
It’s been a week since the end of third year, and still Father hasn’t said a word about any of Draco’s multitude of sins.
Being friendly with Hermione, quitting Divination, coming in second again in class rankings.
There’s more, but it’s hard to say how much Lucius knows. Does he know about the Hyena? About the records?
Snape told him something, but what he said is a mystery.
So it's been a week of suspense, knut in the air, waiting for it to drop.
It’s this sense of unease that pushed Draco out of bed so early. It’s how he finds himself wandering the Manor in the dark, absently deciding between sneaking to the kitchens for a snack or outside to fly. And as he’s wavering, deciding which way to turn in the maze of rooms and hallways, he hears it.
Muffled, yet unmistakable sounds of weeping.
Is it Trinket? Did he burn another batch of pastry? But it's early even for a house elf. And the sound. It’s too human sounding. Too female sounding.
And then the slam of a door reverberates through the Manor, and Draco is running, chasing the noise.
An ear-splitting scream splits the air, the words too garbled to understand. A plea for help, or a plea for mercy. The intent is clear. The sound is wrenching and uncanny in the stillness of the Manor, and just as unsettling, it is cut off almost immediately with the stabbing abruptness of what can only be a silencing charm. Draco is left to wander with no bearings, wondering what he would find if he could. The implication is clear: someone brought the Weeper here. If he found her, what could he even do?
This is his father’s house.
He searches room to room but finds no trace of the Weeper. His head starts to feel foggy, and he finds himself tracing circles in the Manor, turned around. The wards keep pushing at him, and it feels like the sharp sting of betrayal. The wards should be working for him, their master.
He concludes that Father must be hiding the Weeper. It’s the only explanation as to why the Manor’s magic seems to be working against him and his utter failure at navigating his ancestral home, whose layout never before seemed so labyrinthine and confusing.
The sun rises outside his window as he finally returns to bed. His eyes feel heavy as the early morning rays catch on his eyelashes, and as he lays his head down to sleep, he shudders with a sense of dread so palpable that it feels like a tangible thing, soaking wet and dripping out of his pores. White roses sway hypnotically outside his window, and he watches them until he drifts off to sleep.
***
The Malfoys have never had the same aversion to creature magic. If it’s powerful and pragmatic, they tend to support it.
He tries to occlude her words away, but Mother’s stoic monologue feels too much like a threat. He can’t stop thinking of Father’s words, when he first told him about dark magic.
“That’s why I have this,” he had said, tugging down the collar on his robes. There was a symbol branded on his chest, raised red over his heart. “Old magic—elemental. A rite of passage. My father did this when I was fourteen. I’ll teach you when you’re older.”
He contemplates shaking out the envelope, examining the memory again and again.
Instead, he walks to Father’s office. He knocks at the half open, sturdy, panelled wooden door. Father motions him in. The room is large with no windows. Sterile, like Saint Mungo’s. A huge fireplace sits at one end for the floo, and his desk sits in the centre, with chairs on the other side for his minions (or child) to sit at, when the need arises. Built in bookcases cover the back wall, filled with ancient looking tomes. With a pang of guilt, McGonagall’s burnt office flashes through his mind. He folds it away quickly, and slips into the seat across from Father.
“Draco.” Father smiles broadly. His eyes crinkle. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I had a question.”
Father raises an eyebrow and waves his hand for Draco to elaborate.
Draco contemplates making an excuse and running out the door. Instead, he clears his throat. “You once mentioned that rune on your chest…” He watches Father’s lips sharpen into a smirk.
“I’m not hearing a question, son.”
“Mother told me about the Eidolon today. I wondered if that’s what you have.” His face is a mask, and for the first time, Draco wonders if Father also knows occlumency. But what kind of game is Mother playing, if he does.
“Ah, yes. And this is an intellectual curiosity of yours, Draco?” His eyes glitter with amusement, like he’s a king at court, and Draco is a jester's pet monkey, performing a choreographed dance. “Or are you asking for practical reasons?”
“Should I be? Asking for practical reasons.”
“You’re a Malfoy. All knowledge is practical.”
Father leans back in his throne-like chair, and Draco waits for him to elaborate.
He’s given him an opening, and he’s itching to ask his questions plainly, but Father will answer questions straight when unicorns bleed red. Is he forcing this ritual on Draco? What is the ritual? Is it dark enough to require a human sacrifice? Who is the Weeper?
“As a form of protection,” Draco says, when it becomes stiflingly apparent that Father won’t offer anything else, “it seems useful, yet I’m surprised you would willingly tie yourself to a creature. It seems… against Malfoy values.”
Father chuckles, and again, Draco feels like a dancing monkey. “All creatures have their place in our society. Some of the old families choose ignorance, yet in doing so, make themselves foolish, like an ugly sod asking a charmed mirror how he looks.” He takes a moment to straighten the quill lying on his desk. “Disregarding the magic or power of lesser forms is stupid. Take elves, for example. Years ago, our ancestors recognized their power. They’re like parasites or vultures in their natural habitat. We tied them to our bloodlines so they wouldn’t come and kill us in our sleep. Now we have a mutually beneficial relationship with them. They feed off the estate, and we don’t have to pay for hired help. It’s better than the natural order that way, don’t you see?”
Draco muffles a scoff. “But tying an elf to your estate pales in comparison to tying a spirit to your soul. It seems like too great a sacrifice.”
“All the ancient arts require sacrifice, son. That’s what separates them from the gaudy wand-waving Dumbledore teaches now.” He smiles wanly. “All of the ancient arts—Runic Magic, Spirit Magic, Blood Magic, Blessings, Curses… are fueled by sacrifice.”
“That’s why the Dark arts are banned, then. Not because of the intent to harm but—”
“Draco,” he says, affronted. “There is no such thing as ‘dark’ magic. If I’ve said it once—there is just magic. Some magic is labelled by the Ministry sycophants as ‘dark,’ but this is just propaganda.” He shakes his head. “But yes, you’re right. The ministry fears enlightenment. They baulk at the first sign of blood. They want you dependent on your wand, that way they can take it away. They’re all half bloods using a misplaced sense of justice for their muggle great-grandmothers as a pretense to grab power.”
“Because of the Dark Lord?”
Because the Dark Lord used muggle genocide as a way to champion his cause and backdoor protections for his ideals.
Father raises an eyebrow. “Look who’s paying attention in school. Too bad your grades don’t reflect it.”
Focus on your heartbeat. Fold your emotions away.
“If you respect creature magic, why is it so hard for you to accept that Granger is still beating me in class? I have perfect scores. I’m just second in rank.”
“Malfoys don’t whinge, Draco.” He sighs, massaging his temple with two long, pale fingers. “Perhaps it was unwise of me to phrase things the way I did last year.” He blinks slowly, like a cat. “Mudbloods are like goblins, Draco. You can befriend a goblin, you can hire goblins to manage your finances, you can entrust them to help manage your estate. You can have very successful and lucrative partnerships with goblins, but you can never trust a goblin to not stab you in the back. This mudblood, that you’re so unhealthy enamoured with—”
“I’m not—”
Lucius’s cane comes down hard on the desk between them, and Draco jolts.
“I don’t doubt anyone’s power or magic, Draco. That was never the point of you putting the Mudblood in its place.”
“I don’t understand,” he snaps. “What’s the point? You can tie a spirit to your soul but I can’t be friends with Hermione because you think she’s a mudblood?”
Lucius runs his index finger along the length of his cane, cocking his head to the side, as if seeing Draco for the first time. “Eidolon,” he says, speaking so softly that Draco has to lean forward to hear him, “fills my magical reserves and shields me from the effects of curse casting, and it came with minimal sacrifice. I don’t care if she’s a mudblood or a halfblood or even a pureblood at this point, Draco. Whatever you gain from your friendship with her comes with a sacrifice too great. Until she proves her parentage, at your side, she only serves to make you and our entire family look weak and foolish… Tell me Draco,” he says, louder now. “What sacrifice do curses take?’
Draco shrinks back, eyeing Lucius’s cane. “It takes, ah… emotion? The cruciatus takes hate to perform.”
“Very good, Draco. Ten points for Slytherin.” His voice is cloyingly sweet. “Now tell me, where did the emotion come from, when you cursed the Rowle girl? Shut your mouth. Answer this. After you poured all your rage into that curse— all that rage born from your guilt and sense of justice— tell me, did it go away? Or did it become stronger?”
“I–”
“I’ve told you, Draco. I’ve told you that with curses, you become what you cast. And now, that emotion that you used to protect her, it’s become imprinted on your soul. You’re a little fool.” He chuckles again. “What’s next, Draco? You’ll be driven to escalate, now. What will she need next? Your money? Your influence? Your seed? Will you curse another ancient family for her? Burn down your school ?”
Talking to his father feels like he’s polyjuiced into Neville Longbottom on bogart day, and Snape is one vulture-hat mention away from combustion. Silence settles over the pair like sticky tar, viscous and dark and flammable. Lucius’s face is lined and steely across the desk, a space that feels chasmous and infinite in a way it never has before. Draco feels a pang of emotion in his gut, something sharp and painful. He focuses on his father’s hands, bony and pale like his. Unscarred, unlike his. He wears the Malfoy signet ring, the symbol of their family’s wealth, power, and status. Someday, when he is dead, Draco will wear that ring.
The Heir.
He used to burn for the chance to prove himself, to live up to his father’s name. Now, he wonders how life would be different if he were merely a second son.
“She’s just a friend,” Draco says, failing to keep the petulance out of his tone. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t be sacrificing your money, or my seed—” He chokes out the word, feeling his face grow hot. “—for her.”
Lucius tilts his head back and laughs, and the sound is jarring after his outburst. It’s deep, reverberating off the muraled ceiling. When he looks back at him, it’s with such obvious fondness, that Draco almost forgets the past ten minutes. He shakes himself out of it.
“Is that what you’re planning?” he asks. “To force some spirit ritual on me because someone accused me of cursing Rowle?”
Father runs his hand over his brow, looking weary. “Draco,” he says. “I would never force you.” His jaw twitches. “However, if you choose to undertake the Eidolon, you must decide soon. The optimal timing is summer solstice. You know what the stakes are now.”
Wonderful. A week to decide.
Draco nods, excusing himself. At the door, Father calls after him.
“Caecum cum dolore, Draco? It’s a powerful curse. I hear she was just released from Saint Mungo’s only a few weeks ago. You’re a powerful wizard, Draco,” he croons. “I expect nothing less. But, perhaps, use some discretion in the future. If Severus wasn’t in my pocket, the Ministry would be the least of your concerns. The Rowles are an old family, and they hold grudges longer than your mother does. Let this be a lesson to you. Focus less on creating enemies and more on alliances. Who knows whom you’ll have to black mail someday to keep your son out of Azkaban, yes Draco?”
“Yes, sir.” Draco, lightheaded, clutches at the doorknob.
Lucius chuckles.
“Alright, off to bed with you.”
As Draco scrambles out the door, Lucius is still smiling softly down at his desk.