Crosswinds

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Fathers of Sin: fragment no. 1, die falter im der seitenwinds
 
 
Draco had loved it when he was younger how Lucius would pat his head when he'd done a good job and made his father pleased.  He liked the feeling of his father's long fingers ruffling his hair gently in approval.  Lucius didn't do that now.  He hadn't for a while.  Draco was a bit old and tall for it as well, about an inch from eye level with the elder Malfoy.  So his father didn't pat him on the head.  Lucius never touched him anymore.  He hadn't since that year.   
 
"Stupid fucking Potter,” Draco often mumbled to himself as he walked down the hall to dinner or stood in the shower thinking.  Or he would forget it, wishing it all away as he sat on the floor of his room looking over his Lepidoptera collection and picking at his nails.   
 
His father had suggested it years ago when Draco was still a child and annoying in the way that children are in the heat of summer, like dust and mosquitoes and bramble thorns.  It sent him out of doors where he couldn’t get in the way.  Draco hadn’t felt at the time that chasing after butterflies through poppy fields was a very dignified activity, but everyone needed a hobby he supposed. And Lucius had said it was alright.
 
His father had taken an antique net made of silk and a pretty polished mahogany box from the display case in his study and handed it to Draco as he’d pushed him out the door.  Draco had been ecstatic that his father had given him something so important.  Everything in the case was important after all, ancient heirlooms, old special things that Lucius treasured and loved and never let his son touch.  And here his father had taken something from it just for him.  Draco had spent nearly three hours that morning looking for one of the colorful little beasts—so he could show his father how well he’d done—before he’d realized there were no butterflies around Malfoy Manor. 
 
So he’d sent the house elf out to find some.  The elf had come back a half hour later, from the devil knows where, cupping one trembling in it’s little shriveled hands, the creature’s wings all pearly black with soft dabs of violent red and speckled violet at the higher curve of the wing, and the lower decorated with staring grey eyes like quaking moonscapes or wet ashes and as big as opals. Those eyes—they were that special shade in his colorblind world that he chose as his favorite as soon as he’d learned to tell the difference, the color of his father’s eyes.  Draco took it in his hand and watched it flutter a moment—his own eyes lighting with delight—before gripping its soft fleshy body between his thumb and forefinger and slowly, carefully pulling off each wing.  He held them as daintily as his quivering, youthful fingers would allow, so as not to tear them as he pinned the bits gently in the box perfectly—so they lined up, the deep indigo tips resting on an invisible parallel plane.  Grey eyes shone brightly as the boy watched his jeweled treasure and closed the lid, murmuring to himself in satisfaction. Immediately he’d run back to the house and tugged on his father’s sleeve impatiently, gripping the box proudly to his chest. 
 
Lucius examined his son’s efforts with irritation. Draco had received a walloping at the time for getting dust all over himself and his father’s sleeve and for doing the thing wrong, ruining his specimen.  He’d cried and flailed and cried some more as Lucius sighed and shook his head at the drama.  He had shown Draco the right way after—how to stick the pin into the soft body, no need to tear off the wings, no need to get dust on your fingers.  Lucius had run his hand affectionately through his son’s soft blond tresses then, back when he used to do that sort of thing.  And Draco was ecstatic once again that his father should take time out of his schedule just for him. 
 
His mother had told him once in a fit of romanticism that butterflies were like wishes, beautiful things that escape away gently through the breeze—though he didn’t understand then or now what it could have possible meant.  He had over three hundred now, rare ones and common ones, even lost species.  Though he never was able to find that shade—those eyes again. He was never very close to his mother.  And he hated Harry Potter so much.   
 
He often wished one thing or the other would happen.  Either Potter would hurry up and defeat the dark lord, or he would just die already.  Either one had its benefits.  Both would have been ideal.  His father would be happy and he would be happy.  Lucius had always complained about the Death Eaters’ organization.  Draco always thought that his father would do a much better job running things than the Dark Lord.  Lucius was important and he had connections.  He knew how to use his power.  And he wasn't obsessed with living forever, so he could focus on the important things like ridding their world of mudbloods and ending the muggle sympathetic, cockless, spineless, shit-faced government that currently presided over wizarding England. 
 
And Snape.  Snape would get his chance too.  Any one could see the man was brilliant.  And poised and lovely, just like Lucius, like his father.  Draco respected him just as much.  The others accused him of sucking up, but it wasn’t sucking up if you meant it right?  Snape had taught him so many things.  And Snape took care of him when Lucius couldn’t.  He was fucking brilliant.  And he knew what it felt like.  He knew how it felt to hate someone.  Draco wished he wasn’t leaving.  Wished he could stay at Hogwarts and keep things the way they were.  With Snape, with Lucius.  Christ how he hated Potter.  Snape knew.  Snape understood.  He was a goddamn motherfucking genius.  The Dark Lord did not utilize his resources well at all. As far as Draco was concerned, the dark lord didn’t do much of anything particularly well.
 
The name Voldemort didn’t command the same kind of respect that Malfoy did, or even Snape.  It lacked elegance.  It lacked breeding.  It was vulgar, even with the ‘Lord’ in front of it.  How could one command respect and lead if even their title was so fucked up?  It was no wonder the Death Eaters were always botching things or turning traitor.  How could he call this abomination ‘master’?  How did his father?  He wished he wouldn’t.  It made Draco ill to think that he would be part of such a shoddy outfit by the end of summer.  They would lose.  And it was going to hurt like bloody hell.
 
Lucius had assured him he was ready though, and more prepared than any of the other fuckwits Voldemort insisted on including.  “Our time will come.  Patience, in time…” Lucius had said.  It was not unpleasant at all, that word ‘our’.  His and his father's.  It was the only time Draco could remember where Lucius had included him in his plans.  He felt very important.  Even if his father did refuse to touch him.