In This Valley of Tears

He closed the great wooden doors behind him silently. For all of the places that he had destroyed and violated, he had never touched a church. Others around him... they broke the glass and burned the wood. All he could do was stand back, cross himself, and make a silent vow to recite a sorrowful rosary that evening. He wouldn't desecrate a church.

But the night would slip into morning, and the victories would become deluged with mourning, and before he could find the time to pray, it would be time to go out again.

He paused at the candles. Candles lit in prayer... some in remembrance of men he had killed, he was sure. Swallowing hard, he lit one himself - in honor of his mother.

His mother... always a pillar of faith. God has a plan for this, she would say. The Virgin listens to those who come to her in need. Trust in her Immaculate Heart. And oh, how he had believed. His father didn't. He went to Mass when he needed, but he preferred to put faith in his actions. Religion is the opiate of the masses, his father had liked to grumble. For all that he hated the Muggles, he quoted them often enough. But that didn't matter; he went with his mother to Mass every Sunday - it was their special time. He had his mother to himself and she was always in a good mood after Mass. She had the type of faith that people wrote stories about. She always believed in God... and believed in him.

But that was years ago. She hadn't died in an accident, or a murder, or a curse... all of which she was sure would get her considering the choices her husband and son had made. No, she had died in her sleep, finally at peace and no longer having to deal with the consequences of her family's actions.

Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium. Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum, et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula.

He turned to the sanctuary where three altar boys were chanting the creed. His mouth went dry as he heard the words that he had struggled in vain to repeat for too many years. They were so carefree, so trusting. Faith like a child, he had been told. He used to have that. Was that the reason he came back... to this church of his childhood?

Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, genitum non factum, consubstantialem Patri; per quem omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis. Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est.

He slumped into the last pew and dropped his head into his hands. The words of the creed started to ring in his ears. He hadn't heard them in so long, yet they came flowing back to him as the boys sang. There was no magical harmony, as some wizarding churches tended to do. No... as much as he hated to admit it, this church stayed true to it's Muggle predecessors. That's not what he hated to admit. It was the admission that the Muggles had gotten something right that choked in his throat. But Mother had always enjoyed it... she was raised in the Muggle Church. One of mixed parishiners, at least. Her family had never held the same... beliefs on them as his father's side had. They weren't good for many things... very few, in fact... but music of the Church was one. So Mother had insisted upon raising him here... with Muggle musical influence, but certainly not one with them actually worshiping with us. Father would never have gone for that.

Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est, et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas, et ascendit in caelum, sedet ad dexteram Patris. Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, iudicare vivos et mortuos, cuius regni non erit finis.

It had been so long. Easter of his last year at Hogwarts was the last Mass he'd attended. It was beautiful - the gold, the incense, the chant... it was all there, perfectly and immortally etched into his mind. His last confession. The last time he had been right with God before... just before.

***

"Forgive me, Father... not just for my sins I have committed, but for the ones I am about to commit. I know what I am about to do... but I have no choice. It's all fallen down and it has to be this way. I know that what I am about to do will never be right with the Church, but I must do it."

"Son, you go into the world knowing that what you are going to do will be condemned in the eyes of God, and yet you insist upon going down that path?"

"Yes, Father."

"I... I don't know what to say. To do something intentionally, knowing that it is evil and knowing the difference-"

"I know, Father. Please... I know. I just... I need to know that it's going to be alright... that I'm going to be alright..."

"I cannot help you, my son. To knowingly choose the path of evil... I will pray for you, my son, but that is all that I can do. Please, pray with me for God to turn your heart to righteousness before you leave us."

"You sound like my mother."

"Your mother loves you, and wants only the best. Now, let us pray..."

"I'm sorry, Father. I can't... I don't have a choice..."

***

That was the last time he'd set foot in the Church. He knew it was absurd... to ask the priest to absolve him while knowingly sinning against God... He had been young and naïve. But it was important to him... more than the idiots around him realized.

Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex Patre procedit. Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur: qui locutus est per prophetas.

He smiled slightly, face still buried deep within the cup of his hands. The children were off key and bounding all over the place with the syllable placements, but they were reciting the creed. He had had that faith once. He could chant with the best of them... much to the surprise of his common room when he joined in a song that some of the girls were butchering. He can carry a tune, they had whispered. Why was that so surprising?

Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam. Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi saeculi.

It had been so long since he'd heard those words. "Amen," he whispered, finishing the creed with the boys. He must've spoken louder than he thought, because the altar boys turned to face him.

"Excuse me," the oldest one called out. "Would you like for me to find the priest? Have you come for confession?"

He nodded. "Yes... yes I have."

The altar boy nodded and walked down the aisle to the man in the back pew. "He's in his study. I'll go-" The boy cut off suddenly, his eyes going wide. "You... you're..."

The man raised a hand to silence him. "Yes. Why don't you go find the priest?" He shook his head as he watched the boy take a couple quick steps back and nearly run to the study. Typical response.

He shook his head, crossing himself quickly as the boy dissapeared. "Receive my confession, O most loving and gracious Lord Jesus Christ, only hope for the salvation of my soul. Grant to me true contrition of soul, so that day and night I may by penance make satisfaction for my many sins," he mumbled, barely audible. "Savior of the world, O good Jesus, Who gave Yourself to the death of the Cross to save sinners, look upon me, most wretched of all sinners; have pity on me, and give me the light to know my sins, true sorrow for them, and a firm purpose of never committing them again. O gracious Virgin Mary, Immaculate Mother of Jesus, I implore you to obtain for me by your powerful intercession these graces from you Divine Son..."

It was only a few moments before the boy emerged with the priest in tow. "Why don't we step into the confessional, my son?" the old priest suggested.

He nodded slightly, finishing his prayer with "St. Joseph, pray for me", and moved into the confessional. He slipped off his scarf and coat and leaned tiredly against the back of the wall. The priest slid open the window. "You may begin whenever you desire."

"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned," he started. "It has been thirty years since my last confession."

"Mr. Malfoy..."

"Yes, Father?"

"You must keep your sleeves down when in this church," the priest chided slightly. "The altar boy came running to me, babbling about having a Death Eater in the church. I don't want to alarm them."

Draco nodded. "I'm sorry. My coat must've pulled up when I was praying."

"It is understandable," the priest answered. "Now... I haven't talked to you in a long time."

"Thirty years."

"So I really was the last one to hear your confession?"

"Yes, Father."

"Well... I know we have a lot to catch up on," the priest replied gently.

"Yes," Draco replied slowly. "I have done many things."

"God knows... but you must be more specific with me," the priest replied lightly. "Opposed to popular conceptions, I am not omniscient." He leaned back against the confessional wall. "Now Draco-"

"You're not supposed to address me by my given name in the box, Father."

"Forgive me, my son," the old priest replied. "You are correct. Let us begin again. What sins have you come to repent of?" He chuckled. "Remember, repent of all..."

"I have lusted, Father," Draco snapped bitterly. "I have lusted after the wives of my friends and enemies." The priest nodded silently. "I have thought impure thoughts," he continued.

"What sort of impure thoughts?"

Draco paled. He'd forgotten how horribly awkward this was. "I have lusted for another man's wife. I have not... acted... upon these thoughts, but my mind has violated her sanctity as a woman and child of God."

"And who were these women?"

"Do I have to say?"

The priest leaned closer to the window. "You must tell me enough that I can give you the correct penance for your sins. Lying in the confessional benefits no one."

"And omissions of the truth are lies nonetheless," Draco groaned, slumping down the wall. "Ginny... the woman's name was Ginny. She was the wife of... a man I hated. I wanted her. I compromised her. I violated her in my heart," he said through clinched teeth.

"Why, my son?"

"Just because I could," he bit back. "To show that nothing was safe. To prove that my will was stronger than his." He chuckled slightly. "Nothing was sacred. I wanted her only to hurt him."

"Did the sins of the mind become sins of the flesh?"

"No, Father," Draco replied quietly, shaking his head. "Just a childish fantasy."

"Was there anyone else?"

Draco sighed. "Yes, Father." He glanced down at his hands. "She was a mud-muggle," he corrected himself, not wanting to swear in the box.

The priest nodded. "Very unlike you," he responded simply.

"It was a... something I couldn't have," the confessor began. "She was forbidden. So, of course, I wanted it. I wanted to use her - make her realize how beneath me she was. I wanted to dominate her. It would've been beautiful."

"It would've been sinful."

"That too."

The priest sighed. "My son, you're hiding something. And you know as well as I do, you must confess your sins to receive the blessings of forgiveness. Shall we just start going down the list... would that be easier to help you organize thirty years of sin?" Draco nodded. "Alright, have you placed any other higher than our sovereign Lord?"

"Yes Father."

"You're going to have to expound upon that, child."

Draco growled low in his throat. The process of pulling these out of the recesses of his soul was harder than he remembered. "I worshiped the Dark Lord as lord of all... as did we all. I sanctified power, showered blessings upon my wealth, and praised my influence over others. I think that constitutes holding some things over God."

"Yes... yes you have," the priest answered. "Have you taking to creating a graven image and worshipping it over our Lord?"

Draco yanked his sleeve down and almost slammed his forearm against the window. "Does this count?" he grumbled.

"I would suppose it does."

"You know," Draco trailed off, pulling his sleeve down to cover the disgraceful mark, "it burns. At least, it did when he wanted us. It can't burn anymore... but I can still feel it sometimes, late at night."

"It's the bite of sin that you feel burning at your arm," the priest supplied.

Draco nodded slowly. "You're probably right." He chuckled slightly. "So what's next on the list, Father?"

"You tell me. What is the next commandment?"

"Have I taken the Lord's name in vain..."

"Yes, child."

"I have, Father. I swear... often. But that is all."

The priest nodded. "Have you remembered the Sabbath? Kept it holy?"

Draco paused. "I never touched a church. I have tried to pray... tried to remember the Rosary. In fact, I finished a Rosary just 10 minutes before I came here."

"Oh really," the priest answered, his mood picking up slightly. "How long had it taken you? A day? A week?"

"Twenty-seven years."

The priest sighed. "At least it wasn't thirty."

"I tried, Father, I really did," Draco replied cooly.

"I know, son," the priest replied. "But sometimes trying just isn't enough. We all stumble and fall... that is why we've been blessed with the Sacrement of Confession."

Draco clinched his fists tightly in his lap. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," he muttered bitterly. "You think I don't know that?"

"Well, from your last statement, I would assume that you needed a reminder."

"Why the fuck did I come back," Draco hissed. "I didn't come here just to have you... you..."

"You came back because it haunts your dreams at night," the priest said gently. "You can hear his voice in the shadows at night from your cold bed. Instead of hearing children laugh as you walk down the street, you hear the screams and pleas for mercy of those that you burned with the horrible green fire of your wizard's wand. That horrible curse that even Muggles have come to know and to see in their dreams. Those are the screams of the souls that you played God with, and you want peace. You don't want to hear the cries of motherless children or the laughter of your evil anymore. You want me to fix this, and that's why you've come." The priest leaned closer to the window. "And that's why you will not leave, no matter how I respond to the evils that you have committed. You want peace too much, too hard. You fear for your immortal soul because of the stain of sin that has sat upon it for over thirty years."

"I have dishonored my father and mother," Draco continued.

"Go on."

"My mother... she never wanted me to become involved. She knew my father was... she had never know just how deeply until after they'd been married. And she was one who took vows as unbreakable. The look in her eyes when she realized that I had taken the mark... that's burned into my soul forever. The look of dissapointment..."

"It wasn't horror," Draco explained. "I don't think she had any 'horror' left after witnessing my father's deeds. But she really did love him. Anyway, in one act I had destroyed any ideas of dignity and respect for myself and my own choices that she had tried to instill in me. I thought this was a part of my Malfoy dignity and bloody pride." He paused. "I come here in honor of my mother, and all that she'd tried, obviously in vain, to teach me."

"I think we'll skip number six until last," the priest added. "Have you committed adultery?"

"I never married. My sins lie in lust and disgraces of the flesh. But we've already gone over those..."

"Have we gone over all of them?"

Draco laughed absently. He leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms across his chest. "Of course not... Father, have you ever raped someone?" he asked, icily. "It's an adrenaline rush like one would not believe. Knowing that you have complete dominance from another being. They can't do anything. They can't make it stop. Their only chance is to wait out the pain and the humiliation in hopes that the aggressor will have it within his heart or his plan to stop before killing them. And to have people standing around you... watching... and cheering... you can't stop. You can't stop and you don't want to because the fervor around you is growing by the second and every fiber within your being wants to explode with the frenzy that you're surrounded with. And it's glorious, and disgusting, and horrifying and gratifying at the same time."

"My child..." the priest muttered breathlessly.

"You don't have to respond to that, Father," Draco replied. "I don't expect for you to."

"Such a sin..."

"It's revoltingly beautiful," Draco continued absently. "A skin so soft with a will so hard. To mold and break... this supple being..."

"Why... why did you do it, my son?"

"Initiation." Draco traced the outline of the dark mark through his robes. "To demonstrate our power. It's so easy to raise a twig, utter a pair of words, and watch someone fall to the ground. You do nothing. There's no blood, no time, no action," he emphasized. "But this way... we proved our power and desire to dominate through action... there was blood, there was pain, there were screams for the entire time. Wizards who before had barely lifted a finger to demonstrate their power had to get down on their hands and knees and do something for once. You had the blood on your hands. You had the screams in your ears. You manipulated. You controlled. You dominated."

The priest sighed. "Such an evil... I cannot fathom."

Draco slumped against the back of the box. "I look back on it and I can't either. I... was young. And impressionable. I wanted to impress my father. I wanted to be powerful. Joining wasn't a choice... I might as well have made the most of the path that had been chosen for me."

"Your path was not chosen for you, my son," the priest explained. "Not by any mortal being."

"You weren't raised in my home."

"God deigns your path, not Lucius."

"After he died... I didn't have a choice," Draco replied. "It... I had to defend my family's honor."

The priest paused. "You... you killed Percy Weasley. But everyone said it was an accident... it was a Muggle weapon."

Draco laughed quietly. "Brilliant, wasn't it? After Percy... damnable Percy... killed my father to avenge his paltry excuse for a father... I had to defend my father's name. Malfoy's don't back down to such a... explict challenge."

"But... the Weasley's were defending their family," the priest tried. "The papers said that the Death Eaters had come into their home, had captured the young one for... oh, Sweet Jesus, for 'initiation'..."

"You think I don't know that what my father did was disgusting?" Draco yelled. "Do you think that I don't know that he wanted them all dead? Anyone who does the things that he has done deserves to die... I deserve to die for the things that I've done, but I had no choice! It was my family honor, and before I knew it, I was standing in front of Asistant Minister Percival Weasley with a Muggle gun... loaded and cocked and resting on his forehead. The Ministry wouldn't trace a Muggle weapon to a wizard. It would be considered beneath them... especially for a Malfoy. And the next thing I know, the man is lying there, unseeing and unfeeling... in a pool of warm red blood. You don't see that with a Killing Curse. You don't realize the ramifications of cold-blooded murder until you see someone with the life bleeding out of them.

"Wizards don't understand this. They mutter a pair of words and watch someone fall. There's nothing real to it. There's no... vision of what you've done. It's like it's all in some bloody film noir where everything is surreal and there is no proof of the horrible things. There's no blood on your hands, there's no death screams that linger longer... To wizards, it's only a pity. They're gone. We don't see them bleed into the ground. We don't see them rot. We just... fall... and dissapear."

"Thou shalt not kill, Draco Malfoy," the priest replied pointedly, emphasizing each word.

"I know, Father..."

"Thou shalt not kill!" the priest repeated, more forcefully this time. "Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not come to the Father with blood on thy hands... you know this!"

"I know, Father!" Draco roared. He breathed heavily, trying to regain his composure. "I relive it every... day... of my life... I didn't kill him for anyone else... I wasn't under Voldemort's command. I did it for me. For my pride... the worst sin of all..."

The priest visibly shuddered as all of the information sunk in. "Yes... yes, the worst sin of all..." he muttered, absently. "My son, in all of my years... I have never..."

"I always knew I would be special for you, Father," Draco laughed, wryly. "Life handed me pumpkins, and I made pumpkin juice or some other worthless cliché like that."

"No..." the priest whispered. "No," he repeated more forcefully this time. "Life did not do this to you... you did this to yourself."

"Father, you don't understand," Draco started. "You didn't grow up in my house, you didn't have these expectations on you, they didn't kill your father..."

"When our Lord bled on the cross, who retaliated against the centurions guarding the cross?" the priest replied. "No one. Revenge is not the answer. No one makes you do these horrible things, my child. It is your choice. You must take responsibility-"

"I didn't have a choice!" Draco hissed.

"You always have a choice."

"I did not have a choice." Draco pressed his nose to the window. "You don't know. You haven't seen what I've seen. Evil... in its purest form. Palpable. You have to respond in the only way that evil understands."

"Love," the priest answered simply. "The only thing that can refute evil is love."

"Lovely fantasy, Father," Draco snickered. "Have you ever come face to face with the current embodiment of all that is disgusting and repulsive in the world? I have. I know. I did what I had to do."

"It was sin. You were wrong."

"What would you have had me do?" Draco snapped. "Just roll over and die like a weak little child?"

"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," the priest replied gently.

"I am not weak!" Draco roared. "I refuse to be! What is it... I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength..."

"Our Lord does not give you the strength to rape, pillage and murder."

Draco paused. "No... but I came face to face with evil... I had no choice..."

"My child," the priest intoned lowly. "Do you repent of these horrible deeds? Do you accept responsibility for your actions and come before God in penitence and with humility?"

"It was not my fault! I didn't have a choice!" Draco rose from his seat and stormed out of the confessional.

The priest jumped up and threw open the door. "Then why did you come?" he called out to the wizard racing out of the Cathedral. "What were you looking for?"

Draco paused, turning around slowly to face the old priest. "I came... I don't know why I came. Searching for what my mother had, I guess."

"We must all accept responsibility for our actions, imperfect beings that we are," the priest explained. "For no one is perfect, but it is our choices that make us so."

"If we're all imperfect, how can we be forced to take the blame?"

"Because we choose our levels of imperfection," the priest replied. "No one has done this to you. You have done this to yourself. When you have accepted that, return to me, Draco Malfoy. Our Lord cries over each of his lost sheep-"

"I'm not a sheep," Draco bit. He turned and stormed out of the church, his footsteps fading into the distance.

"We are all sheep, little children of God, my son," the priest mumbled, sadly. "For what has our Lord been shown as, but a Good Shepherd? He mourns when one is lost from the flock. He mourns us... prideful beings that we are. I can do nothing as your shepherd if you run away. I can only show you the way home and pray that God removes the poison of pride from your soul before it is too late, my son. And I can only hope that one day... one day you'll return home."