Patriarchal Parody

So, father.

You want me to follow you in your footsteps? Someone who will serve and worship the Dark Lord for eternity, serve him and only him, become one with evil?

A Death Eater.

There had been a point, a period of my less-than-savory life where I would have let the Dark Mark burn itself into me a thousand times over, if it meant that I would receive your approval, your nodding glance, your gentle hand on my head, your love.

But you didn’t. Maybe couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.

And I never received these basic and instinctive-for-all-parents-except-you needs that I craved.

Who wanted pile among piles of cold, hard galleons? Why would I need to be the top student, the perfect son, and the leader of the Slytherins? Why does Harry Potter need to be my nemesis… simply because his father was yours?

You know, father? I would have given my life, my blood, my soul, to hear once, just once, that you cared for me. Even if just a little. I would have grasped onto that lifeline and I would have eagerly served the Dark Lord.

Even if I knew it was wrong.

Even if I wanted to join the other side.

I would have still served you, father. Served you and Him eternally and first.

I would have performed the Cruciatus curse on anyone who even looked at you wrong. I would have watched with almost a dispassionate air as the victim writhed on the ground, their bones shattering one by one, their nerves disintegrating into a nothingness that I’ve long associated my life with.

I would have willingly tamped my pride and loathing down in order to be the dog you have always wanted me to be. If you had only pretended to love me, instead of being the cold bastard you are.

Then this misery I know as my life would not exist. I would have sold my soul long ago. The pain that gnaws at me wouldn’t subsist, because I would exist only for you.

And I wouldn’t be here, staring at Harry-bloody-Potter, wishing, raving, raging why I couldn’t be him, why I couldn’t have had a father who died for me, friends who would lay down their souls for me. Why I couldn’t have the life, his life, the one I’ve only but dreamed about.

And everyday, you give me the answer.

A Malfoy is strength. Physically and mentally. Only a weakling would need love or emotions. Remember that Draco and you will succeed.

Oh, yes. I remember that well. You have only said it to me every hour of every day of my life. The endless road before me yawns wide and I sometime have panic attacks, realizing that I’ll be hearing those words for a long, long time.

Father. I don’t want to ‘succeed’.

All I want is to be Draco. Not a Malfoy. All I want is to have a childhood. Not an exulted adulthood. All I want is your love and your approval. Not some professor. Not even You-Know-Who. But you.

Remember when I was four?

Do you remember how I ran up to you and gave you the painting I had made, the best one of all the drawings I had done that day? I worked forever, trying to attain the perfection you always demanded. And I was so proud. Even mum, the perfectionist about beauty, said I was better than most adults she had met.

But what did you say?

Throw that away now, Draco. You’re too old to bother with such infantile pursuits.

And with that, you dashed and destroyed all my hopes, my innocence, my drawing. With barely a flick of your wand, hardly even noticing – never noticing – my transition between childish loves to childish malice.

There is a difference.

I can’t beg off and say that I am better than you. I can’t claim that my nature, my self, my conscience desires more cleanliness than yours. Because, in the end, if you had loved me, and had asked me to do what you expected, I would have picked up that wand and yelled Avada Kedavra at anyone you asked, with nary a thought.

No guilt.

No downfall of conscience.

Nothing but the deep satisfaction of completing the task you set me out to do.

Therefore, I am not good. I am still evil, dark, as black as you. And I do not deny it the way you do. I do not treat anyone ‘nicely’. I lord over those I consider weaker. I torture mercilessly those who aren’t in Slytherin and even those who are. I reign in my mind as the supreme pureblood and curse those of defiled blood.

You should have been proud.

But you weren’t. And you aren’t.

A Malfoy is to serve the Dark Lords themselves, no matter what happens. We started with Salazar Slytherin and have continued through the centuries with all the wizards. We have played our cards well and have created a pure image of perfection to the public. But we will continue to serve through the Dark Lord!

That is what the Malfoys are for. We are born and killed for the side of evil. Poetic, isn’t it? From the beginning, I was Malfoy. Not Draco, but Malfoy. That’s all the Gryffindors call me. They would laugh if they knew how correct they were.

I was created for one purpose.

I am to become one of the most prolific and accomplished Death Eaters. Devoted to Voldemort and Voldemort only.

Destiny committed me to this long, winding path.

And the only reason I’m not on the path is because of you and mum.

You for not loving me.

Mum for loving me too much.

She has given me everything that is ‘good’ in me. She may have had the same prejudices and bloodlines that come with any pureblood, but she still loved me more than anything she could have bought with money, anything she could have bribed with her name.

Mum loved me.

Which is why I under reflection, I deliberated that I would continue to follow you, even as I balked at the thought and the horrifying truths I perceived daily. Because I knew she loved you too. I wonder… but you two were quite the example of perfection those days.

You are no longer that paragon of wizardly rightness anymore.

Change.

The very antithesis to our lifestyle. We, the Malfoys, have served unswervingly for decades, centuries. We never change. Our very name means, ‘Bad Faith’, and yet, we never change. One would think that the moment we could, we would have escaped the darkness.

But we didn’t.

We lingered and continued to let the blackness wrap its silky arms around our minds, our bodies, our souls. Because of you father, my hands have been drenched in more blood then any child. Because of you, father, I know nothing about friends.

Friends would have been nice. They might have saved me.

They might have saved you.

But you considered close ‘friends’ that of bad taste. You considered anyone who could prove a liability, a waste of space and air. You considered no one of Slytherin house worthy of me except as lackeys and mistresses.

The same with mother.

You couldn’t stand that I was devoted to her first, you second, could you? You hated that I would sacrifice my life for her, but not you. You decided that me being so faithful – once again, the antithesis – to someone other than you or the Dark Lord was unbearable.

Therefore, you got rid of her. In that cold, calculating way of yours, you took and destroyed the ‘drawing’ once more. To the Ministry, you affected the lie that Narcissa – I will not give you the pleasure of hurting me – had been sick for the longest time. You managed to convince a contact at St. Mungoes to create false papers. And then you took her away.

From me.

If you had loved me, even this grievous transgression would have been forgiven. If you loved me, perhaps we would be singing together the curses, casting each one over and over on the unsuspecting public. We would be planning and hatching the destruction of all at Hogwarts, even Snape, my favorite and only respectable teacher.

We would walk into a mudblood area and laugh as we killed each tragic mistake of a human being.

You know, father, if you had just loved me, and had not chosen, out of all the ways to harden me, to take the one person I came close to loving, then I wouldn’t be turning you into Dumbledore and agreeing to work as a double agent for the light side.

If you had loved me, I wouldn’t let myself be stained by the light. If you had loved me, well, instead of sitting here at Hogwarts, I would be blasting as much of it down as I could.

But, only for you, father.

If you only had…

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