What Needed to be Done
Today, Draco Malfoy was going to kill his father.
It wasn’t going to be an accident. The nine-year-old had been planning this for weeks, thinking about it even longer.
He lay sprawled in his canopy bed every night and let the sounds of breaking glass fill his tiny body with rage. He made sure to save every last drop of it until he finally had enough in store to do what needed to be done.
He was a quick learner. Just like his dad.
Draco had paid attention to everyone like a hawk that week. Charting. Writing down notes in sloppy kid's scrabble with the vocabulary of an adult.
The maids, guards, ambassadors - they all came and went from the house like clockwork. Ticking and tocking all through the house like rats in cloaks.
He liked watching from around a corner as a maid put ointment on his mother’s sharp cheek and wrapped her wrist. He liked watching her purple bruises turn yellow. He liked knowing that he would put a stop to it. That he would be the one to save her.
There was little that could make her eyes light up anymore. She reserved her dwindling supply of smiles for her darling son - each one a little weaker than the last.
She used to smile at anything. Everything. Like she was privy to some cosmic joke only she understood.
“Promise me you’ll stay this young and innocent forever, Draco.”
His mother rustled his white-blond hair with foggy eyes.
“I promise.” They locked pinkies.
***
Draco had begun the murder by questioning his father in that sweet voice of his.
“Father, tell me about the beautiful artifacts you collect.”
His father scratched his clean-shaven face, looking in bleary confusion at the whisky glass in his hand. It seemed to keep refilling itself.
“Huh?”
“Could you teach me about some of the neat things you bring home?”
His father babbled about the different knick-knacks that had brought their family into even greater wealth. Draco had to refill his glass again before the man’s tongue became loose enough to brag about his favorite knick-knack: A muggle's weapon.
A gun.
A small black machine able to end a wizard with the twitch of a finger. Undetectable and untraceable via magic. Something the wizarding world has not learned to be afraid of. Yet. It wasn’t magic.
It was better than magic. Quicker.
“These machines will be the evolution of the protection of wizardkind, Draco. Just you wait.”
Draco bent down to tie his shoe.
“And with you controlling both the supply and the market, you’ll be able to decide who evolves and who doesn’t.”
“What?” His father hiccuped.
The child stood.
“It’ll make us more money?” he grinned like a boy on Christmas morning.
“Yes,” his father leaned back in his chair and squinted his eyes. “Be grateful. You’ll never have to toil as I have.”
***
His father went on a “business trip” that weekend. His mother cried. Draco steadied himself for what was to come, for what needed to be done. He was excited, to say the least.
His hands were steady as he punched in the stupid combination for his father’s safe.
His hands were steady as he loaded what his father had called a "bullet" into each of the device's six chambers.
His hands were steady as he went into the woods behind the manor and practiced - emulating the way he’d seen his father shoot down people in their parlor from his spot on the stairwell.
Father always shot people in the parlor. It didn’t have the giant oriental rugs that the other rooms did. It was easier to clean. Draco made note of that.
His father returned home with a bouquet. The pink flowers were tied together with a ruby-red necklace, and just like clockwork - he had bought her love again.
Their son watched from the top of the stairs as they embraced. The father tenderly cupped the mother's cheek. She’d turned and kissed his palm and for a second, Draco had doubts.
Maybe things would get better, maybe he wouldn’t have to follow through with his plan. Maybe if she felt safe enough to kiss hands that had brutalized her just days ago, there was hope for forgiveness. For change.
Maybe God was real.
That night when they sat down for dinner, his father gave him a present too: a beautifully illustrated children’s version of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, embossed with real gold.
But Draco’s love wasn’t so easily bought.
They weren’t even halfway through their quail and rice before his parents were arguing again.
His father was red in the face, pupils blown wide by some drug. He was a handsome man, but the drugs always seemed to distort his aristocratic features. Like it was made of wet paint. He looked so big and his mother looked so small. So old and thin.
The bouquet, now in a vase, sat at the center of the table, laughing mockingly at the family for hoping. For giving and taking chances.
Narcissa's eyes cut to her son.
Lucius Malfoy relaxed into his seat, ever the regal lion. He raised his napkin to wipe at thin lips.
“Get to bed now child. Your mother and I have to catch up.”
Draco’s fingers brushed over the embossed detailing on the book.
“Go on Draco, listen to your father,” his mother gently prodded.
She gave him one of her smiles. He wondered how many she had left.
The child rose, clutching the book to his chest with white knuckles.
As he turned to leave, his father’s voice called from behind him,
“Goodnight, son.”
He grit his teeth, his stomach clenching with something sour.
“Goodnight,” he somehow managed, not turning to face them.
With that he walked out of the bright dining room to the hallway beyond, fighting back the sting of unexpected tears.
The green-glass lights his mother hated but never complained about cast human-shaped shadows against the wall. Other children might have been afraid of them, but Draco had learned at a young age that real monsters didn’t have shadowy teeth and claws. Real monsters wore silver cufflinks and green robes. Real monsters twisted the definition of love. Of progress.
Draco’s real monster sat just a room away – wearing human skin and a slurred voice.
The boy pressed his back to the wall beside the door, just out of sight.
Inhale 1, 2, 3, 4 -
Exhale 5, 6, 7, 8.
His next movements were surgical. Rehearsed.
He stepped into the role of the boy who could do what needed to be done. His mother had always insisted that he could do anything. Be anything.
The unhappy couple was silent for a moment as if waiting for him to get out of earshot. As if he didn’t already know their family tree had poisoned roots. Generations of shame contorting their family bark into brambles that could only produce rotten fruit.
Draco set the children’s book on the ground.
“You’re an ungrateful bitch, you know that?” His father had one of those voices that carried no matter how quietly he spoke.
Draco methodically untucked his shirt and pulled the firearm from his waistband. The boy didn’t flinch at the sound of his mother's blue china being smashed against the wall.
The handle of the gun was too big for him to wrap his chubby kid hands all the way around, but for some reason, he felt calm. It was just another run-through in his head. It wasn’t happening for real. He read somewhere that tricking your brain was helpful with warding off procrastination.
He heard his mother’s quiet “Please -". The metal was smooth and cold against his skin.
He peeked around the doorframe just in time to see Lucius yank his mother’s head to face him, his fist wrapped around her pretty hair.
There was an audible click as Draco readied the weapon, his kid hands weak but determined as he used his whole arm to cock it back. His father's wet-paint face whipped around and he let go of his wife’s hair, backing away as if embarrassed to be caught in the act.
His father’s eyes were wide as he started to say, “Put down the gun Draco, you don’t know what you’re-”
The bullet melted into his stomach.
The sound was much louder inside than it had been in the woods.
The boy’s ears rang as his father looked down at the hole in his silk shirt, looked back up at him, and blinked rapidly as he stumbled back into a wall, unable to process his new reality.
The Malfoy heir marched forward, firing the weapon three more times.
One bullet sunk into the wall behind Lucius' ear.
The other two sunk into his face.
Draco's monster collapsed to the floor with a dull thud.
Blood began to flow over what remained of his mother’s broken china. It was the same color as her new necklace.
Draco should have waited until they moved into the parlor. He hadn’t wanted to stain their nice carpet - but he had to admit he was glad it was finally over. He exhaled, a weight being lifted off of his bird-like shoulders.
They were free now. They were safe.
She didn’t have to hurt anymore.
She could smile again.
The mother beheld her darling boy, mouth agape like a banshee.
As he put the firearm away and strode happily to her with the pride of a child who had just drawn a pretty picture, she realized that he was never her son.
He was the making of his father.