Patterns

The night descends softly

With the hush of falling leaves

Casting shivering shadows

On the houses through the trees

 

Night held the world gently, ruling over all with a benevolent, half-shut eye. Lucius Malfoy, fallen asleep in his armchair with a newspaper on his lap and a half-finished glass of wine on the table beside him, dreamed troubled dreams full of shadows.

 

Lucius dreamed he was a child of eight. It was summer. He was standing in the coolness beneath the stand of hemlock trees behind his maternal grandfather's mansion. Gentle whispers of wind ruffled his blond hair, still soft and fine, and he could barely see Grandfather Torelli in the gloom.

"Lucius. Do you remember what I taught you?" the old man prodded, and he sounded as though he was smiling.

"Of course -- I live by what you taught me! We are better than those not born with wizarding blood, and those who sympathize with them. We are better than the poor, and the unknown." Though he knew he was a child in this dream, Lucius' voice was that of a man.

"Yes. You learned that lesson well. Better than Claudia ever did . . ." he digressed. "Your mother thought she loved me, you know, but I knew she couldn't bring herself to. And so I wasted no love on her." His voice faded and grew distant. "Never waste love on someone who will never love you back . . .."

A hand clamped on Lucius' shoulder, and he looked up, up, up, to where his grandfather's face must be, and Lucius trembled with trepidation as the wind began to press against him with increased strength. "Sometimes, blood is more important than love. You have an obligation, Lucius, that you were born to fulfill. Don't let me down. Don't you dare let me down." The fingers tightened . . . tightened . . . the wind died down, leaving stifling summer heat . . . tightened . . ..

 

Lucius woke suddenly, throwing his arm out and knocking over the wineglass. Wildly, he looked around the room, eyes lingering on the smoldering fire in the grate, at its hottest after burning so long, and on the full-length window, through which he could see wind-tossed trees. A dream. A dream, and memory.

 

Draco Torelli had been a man given to prejudice and tradition, so different from his liberal daughter Claudia and her husband, the French Hadrian Malfoy. As Lucius had always resented his parents and their ways, he had quickly latched on to his grandfather, and learned from him the obligations that went with old blood such as his. It had made so much sense to him: some were born with wealth and deserved it, some with prestige, and a lucky few, with magic. Those things distinguished the worthwhile men and women from those who did not matter, or were to be despised. Lucius had been fortunate enough to be born with all three legacies. His grandfather had established one thing immediately: this sole fact was enough to make him more important than anyone else. It was only fair that he be treated as such.

As Lucius had grown, arrogance flourished, aided by his successes in school and in society. But he grew away from love. His mother, who loved him so much, was sadly puzzled by his aloof indifference to her, and his father . . . Hadrian had been, and still was, a shrewder man than any Lucius had yet met. He knew immediately what the cause of his son's conceit was, and abruptly cut off all contact with Draco Torelli. But the damage had been done. No heartfelt words of love or cutting questions could change the man Lucius was quickly becoming.

 

The reflection passed through Lucius' mind, and he thought of his own son. Draco -- named after the boy's great-grandfather -- was following the same path that had been traversed not so long ago by Lucius himself: becoming arrogant, aloof, and angry. The only difference was that Draco had interpreted his parents' wishes as such, and so expected praise for his actions. Ever since he had returned from school last week, he had avoided the manor. Lucius suspected that he was clandestinely meeting with Death Eaters, despite being forbidden to do so -- proof that the boy had taken pride, disobedience, and prejudice to a length that even Lucius had not.

If Draco Torelli had been a mighty and venomous tree, and Lucius the minor sapling that had sprung up in its shadow, Draco Malfoy was as a leaf fallen from Lucius' tree, never his own person, doomed to rot in two shadows.

 

And the light from a streetlight

Makes a pattern on my wall

Like the pieces of a puzzle

Or a child's uneven scrawl

 

Draco walked down a deserted city street, cloaked by darkness most of the time but, every once in a while, disrobed by the diffuse light of a guttering streetlamp. He glanced from side to side whenever he passed under these, determined not to be discovered. He had done something that was certain to condemn him.

His father, for all his ostensible dedication to Lord Voldemort and obvious dislike of mudbloods and Muggles, did not want Draco to be a Death Eater. Oh, he made excuses -- "You're not old enough yet" was the main one -- but Lucius Malfoy was not easily capable of lying to his only son. The truth was apparent for him to see: Draco's father questioned the man he had sworn allegiance to. He supported the cause, of course, but Voldemort? There was less certainty there.

Draco had made the mistake of telling this to Marcus Flint, who was already a Death Eater. Now this message would find its way to the Dark Lord . . . and what then? "What have I done? I'm so stupid! Stupid!" Draco pounded impotently on the pole of a streetlight, almost crying in ashamed rage. "And he'll know that it was me. Marcus will tell him that it was me. Why did I say that?"

"Draco?" The voice came from the indistinct border between the light and the darkness, and he went rigid. "Draco? What's wrong?" It was his mother, and she had her arms full of parcels. Narcissa had never gotten her Apparation license, and had to walk to do her shopping.

"I . . . I . . . don't talk to me!" he shouted, running past her and sending the packages flying. A shattering sound cracked in his ears, but Draco didn't heed it. He just wanted to be home . . .!

Draco ran the rest of the way to the large manor that he called home, flung open the door, and dashed up stairs and through halls to his room, where he collapsed, sobbing and gasping for air, on the lush bed.

It might have been as much as an hour before the door opened silently behind him, and Narcissa Malfoy sat down beside him on the bed. "What was that about, Draco?" she asked gently. "Why did you run away? What did you say?"

"Nothing. Nothing." Draco buried his head deeper in the mattress, muffling his words.

"All right, who did you say this to, then?" Narcissa asked, more sharply.

"Some . . . some girl." A lie. A hasty lie.

"You didn't talk to 'some girl'. Who was it? Because," she said, swiftly adding a lie of her own, "I know spells to make you reveal everything you've said today. I can find out, and I promise you I'll be stricter if I have to resort to those measures."

Draco lifted his head, then sat up and glared at his mother. "We're doomed. The whole family. I told Marcus Flint that I think Father's not loyal to Voldemort, and he'll tell the Dark Lord. Figure out what that means."

Narcissa smiled at him in a thoroughly unconvincing way. "It means we eliminate one Marcus Flint from the Earth." Then she frowned. She was plainly testing him.

"So . . . you won't tell Father? And you'll kill Flint for me?" Draco could hardly believe his luck.

"I will tell Lucius. And you will kill Marcus Flint. This is your mistake, and you will have to clean up after yourself." She gave him a piercing look, and Draco thought, here is the test.

"I'll kill him, Mother. Don't worry." Test, passed.

Narcissa stood, eyes haunted, and gave her son an affectionate half-hug. "I do love you, Draco. Don't forget that." With those words, she released her son and stalked out of the room.

 

Mrs. Malfoy made her unsteady way downstairs -- her husband had fallen asleep in his armchair again, and she didn't want to disturb him, so she had no reason to remain on the upper floors -- to her own study. Unlike Lucius', it was small and discreet, filled with fiction books and moving pictures, and, most of all, the scrapbooks she had chronicled her life with.

A picture sat on her desk, of herself with a short, plump girl whose hair was bright red. Both were grinning from ear to ear and waving. "Molly . . . whatever happened to us? You used to be such a good friend. But then we got married, and now we're on opposite sides." Narcissa stroked the photograph with a beringed hand, and then bent to pick up the scrapbook labeled 'Draco'.

The first pages were so sweet . . . pictures of little Draco playing with finger paint, a hilarious scene involving a house elf and quite a lot of flour . . . four-year-old Draco doing a puzzle of a dragon . . . and then a carefully preserved piece of paper, on which was the first sentence that he had ever written: 'I lov yu Mommy'. Narcissa quickly flipped to the back of the book and wrote a new entry. Today, Draco will become a killer. It is my fault. He doesn't care that he'll be ending a life! How could he not care? Does he think I want this? Where did I go wrong?

"I love you, Mommy," Narcissa choked out, throat constricted. "I love you, Draco." She closed the book with a thud of pages and a rise of dust, and slid to the floor, sobbing and moaning, more grief in her heart that she had ever felt before.

 

Up a narrow flight of stairs

In a narrow little room

As I lie upon my bed

In the early evening gloom

 

 

Darkness spread around Draco, as he contemplated the task his mother had given him. Kill Marcus Flint. Kill Marcus Flint. It would be his first time to kill a human being. Shouldn't he be feeling some kind of remorse?

If so, he wasn't. The chief concern in his mind was exactly how to go about killing Flint. How would he find the boy? Once found, how would he kill him?

Finding him should be easy; Draco knew where Flint lived, and the Death Eaters hadn't been called, or else Lucius would be out. And it would probably be best to kill him in a Muggle way, to throw off suspicion. A knife. A rusty knife. And he'd take some items, too, to make it look like a house robbery and murder.

Satisfied, Draco prepared himself for the trip to kill his first man.

 

Lucius looked over the newspaper he had already read at least three times. ‘PETTIGREW’S CONFESSION: After Fourteen Years, a Convict’s Name is Cleared.’ The huge headline reminded him again of what a coward had done to escape Voldemort. What would a brave man do? A brave man would wait in service, remain loyal despite his doubts. Why does it sound as though I have the two backwards?

He stood, unwilling to deal with the thoughts that were sparked by Peter's defection and upcoming execution. Composing himself as he went, Lucius headed downstairs, perhaps to listen to the WWN (or perhaps not; they were certain to be yapping about Wormtail as well), or maybe for a late-night snack.

These vague intentions, however, were forgotten when he heard his wife weeping. Narcissa, he was coming to understand, was the only person he had ever really loved in his life. Even Draco, dutiful son and heir to the Malfoy name, did not receive any paternal feelings from Lucius, and it was shaping him into a detached person.

Narcissa was huddled on the floor in her study, one of her journal-albums on her lap, crying. She shook her head in denial of something, flipping incessantly between two pages. The writing on one was loopy and crude, while the other was marred only by almost miniscule script across the top.

"What happened, love?" Lucius asked, dropping to his knees beside her. She only shook her head more violently, silver-blond hair whipping at both their faces. He gently pried the scrapbook from her fingers and looked at the two pages she had immersed herself in.

I lov yu Mommy.

Today, Draco will become a killer. It is my fault. He doesn't care that he'll be ending a life! How could he not care? Does he think I want this? Where did I go wrong?

"What does this mean?" he inquired, taking her face in his hands. "Become a killer? Your fault? What haven't you told me, Narcissa?"

"Ask . . . ask Draco," she murmured, and convulsively embraced her husband.

"All right." He returned the gesture, rocking her and patting her hair. "It'll be all right."

"No it won't. Draco . . . I've lost him. I've lost him, Lucius!" she wailed. "He doesn't care!"

Lucius determined to ask Draco what was this was about, immediately.

 

He climbed the slender spiral staircase to Draco's room, prepared for the worst. What was the worst? What could have hurt Narcissa so deeply? Whose life would Draco end, and why?

The object of his thoughts suddenly appeared before him on the stairs. Draco was sauntering down with that insufferable smirk on his face, and an old knife in his hand that seemed to be of worn iron.

"Where are you going?" demanded Lucius, barring the way. He watched the smirk evaporate.

"I . . . I told Marcus Flint something I shouldn't have -- and I'm sorry -- and, and Mother said to kill him . . . so it wouldn't - wouldn't get back to Voldemort - Lord Voldemort, that is," Draco stuttered, refusing to meet his father's eyes. "So I'm going to kill Flint."

Lucius had not maintained his high-class position by being imperceptive or a fool. "What did you tell him about me?" he hissed.

Draco took an involuntary step back, and looked up with desperate eyes. "I -- nothing, Father, nothing, I swear!" Seeing that this was getting him nowhere, he finally hung his head and admitted in an almost inaudible whisper, "I told him that I think you're not fully loyal to the Dark Lord."

Lucius smiled, and the smile grew into a laugh. "Draco, you foolish boy! Why have a death on your conscience when you can perform a memory charm? Your mother was testing you. And you failed. Thoughtless. The first lesson of the Malfoy family is, never kill but when you have no other option. That is why our family could not be blamed for any of the murders that took place during Voldemort's first reign." He stepped up to where his son stood, and glared at him through the gloom. "Never question my loyalty. It is as pure now as it was when I first joined our Dark Lord."

"No, sir! I won't question your loyalty again! I'll . . . I'll just leave now and fix his memory. Please!" Draco was poised to run down the stairs, terrified that he would be punished severely by his clearly furious father. Lucius laughed the loudest when his anger was closest to the surface.

"Go ahead. And be back before midnight -- it's dangerous outside," added Lucius, moving aside to let Draco past. The boy took off like a juggernaut.

Lucius Malfoy watched his son round the first bend in the staircase and become lost to view, before ascending the rest of the way to the room Draco had claimed.

It was a lavish room, even by his standards, the bedspread of velvet, the sheets of satin, with gold frames for the myriad posters over the walls and dressers of mahogany and teakwood. The closet set into one wall was full of neatly hung robes of the richest materials, green, black, white, or silver, some embroidered with Malfoy, Torelli, Chamille, or Verdé designs. The whole of the room was impeccably neat -- more tribute to the work of so many house-elves than to Draco's efforts.

Lucius lay down on the velvet-adorned bed, and stared up at the ceiling. And then he sat up, peering still harder. Something faintly glinting had caught his eye. He reached up, feeling thin bars of metal and dangling wire, shapes that crunched slightly in his hands . . . and a hook. Gently, Lucius unhooked the whatever-it-was and pulled it down for closer examination.

A mobile. Little paper golden snitches, their almost-round parts coated thickly with gold glitter, hung from ordinary fishing wire, along with sticks that had straw tied haphazardly to their nether ends, and pictures that might have been torn from magazines. This was . . . how old was it? Nine years, at least. And Draco had kept it hanging over his bed, despite the crudeness of it? Why?

Did he value his childhood as much as Narcissa so obviously did?

 

Impaled on my wall

My eyes can dimly see

The pattern of my life

And the puzzle that is me

 

Actually, there were many small things around Draco's room that were souvenirs of his youth. A puzzle of a dragon, the box battered, a picture, framed in modest construction paper rather than ostentatious gold, of a magic wand spewing splatter-painted sparks, and a photo of the whole family at a picnic, in which Draco was perhaps only three. How could someone who kept reminders like these be callous to the thought of killing?

Even though he had grown to shun every moral his parents held dear, and to believe that he, by virtue of birth, was more worthy than anyone else, Lucius had never been able to stomach the thought of killing other humans. How the other Death Eaters had managed to laugh as they murdered, he would never understand. How could he understand his own son, if Draco joined those ranks?

Absently, Lucius opened the puzzle box and took out the pieces, beginning to put them together. Most of the paint was flaking, except for the scrolling letters that read, 'Draco the Dragon'. The pieces fitted so perfectly, most of the time, but a few had become so worn with age that there were gaps between them. And one piece was missing: the one that would have been the face of the dragon.

"Draco's incomplete." And then, like puzzle pieces themselves, his thoughts clicked into place. For the first time since he had held his infant son in his arms, a truly paternal smile crossed Lucius Malfoy's face. Finally, he understood the conclusion that had eluded him.

 

From the moment of my birth

To the instant of my death

There are patterns I must follow

Just as I must breathe each breath

 

Draco knew that he had been brought up to fit a very specified set of ideals. This was not something that had been explained to him, but he knew it all the same. His parents wanted him to grow up to be just like them, and that meant to disdain the less fortunate, to be carefully courteous to the more powerful, and that those of your blood were more important than anyone else.

He had scrupulously followed these regulations, proud to be so privileged. True, he had only very few friends, but he had his family, so what did that matter? But lately, he had begun to wonder whether he really had his family. His mother loved him, always had and always would, but she seemed to disapprove of everything he did to try and gain her favor. And his father . . . had Lucius ever loved his son, much less approved of him? Perhaps, once, but not now.

Feeling this, desolation had worked its way into Draco's heart, and he took the feelings out on others. Potter had been more than willing to fight at the least provocation, and that had been distraction enough for some time. Then McGonagall had found out about their clandestine duels, and he had been forced to make accusations, and then Father had gotten involved, and his efforts had collapsed like a house of cards. He had been punished for lying to his father, something that Lucius found intolerable. But worse, he had been left with nothing to take his mind off of his increasing loneliness. It was too late to change himself around so that others would befriend him. So he had taken to meeting with his older 'friends', Marcus Flint and Edmund Warrington, both of them Death Eaters now. Thus had he gotten into yet another mess.

He was like a cloth, onto which had been chalked a pattern. He had diligently followed this pattern, snipping out compassion and concern to leave a cloak of arrogance, and when the cloak was turned around with admiration, the tailor saw to his horror that there had been another, different pattern on the back. Now, though, it was too late to change the garment.

So be it. Too late to change mistakes made in the past.

Much the same as his situation now. But he would fix this mistake before it grew to be beyond his control.

Without thinking about it, Draco lapsed into a sprint, careening down roads and sidewalks toward Marcus Flint's house. This must be dealt with now.

 

Like a rat in a maze

The path before me lies

And the pattern never alters

Until the rat dies

 

After examining Draco's belongings, Lucius had talked to Narcissa. Though she was relieved that her son would not kill, a fresh spate of tears were shed at the mention of the mobile and the puzzle, and the photograph. She remembered those days all too well.

Lucius and Narcissa had retired to the kitchen, listening mutely to the WWN news broadcasts and music. True to expectations, the 'news updates' were really just reiterated information about the confession of Peter Pettigrew and its ramifications.

"So Pettigrew did turn himself in? I'd thought he would," Narcissa finally commented. "He'll be getting the death penalty, won't he?"

"It's what he would want. Wormtail always felt guilty about what he'd done to the Potters."

Narcissa smoothed back her hair and rubbed her eyes. "Why did you call him Wormtail?"

"Wormtail used to be his nickname when he was among friends. When he first joined us, he told me that he'd got the nickname because he was an unregistered Animagus, able to turn into a rat." Lucius turned off the wireless in annoyance. "And he'll die like a rat. Cowardly."

"At least he's getting out," Narcissa countered. "We both know how our loyalty to Voldemort has been affecting Draco. It's because of this Death Eater nonsense that he's so . . . so cold-blooded now. If we'd refused to go back, and gone to Dumbledore's side when we had the chance --"

"But we didn't. Now we have to give our full support to Lord Voldemort so he'll win this war. If he doesn't win, think of the repercussions! Think of what it will mean for Draco if we fail our lord!"

"What if we fail anyway, and lose the war? What will happen to us then?" Narcissa took her husband's hand. "I can't stand what I see happening in Draco. He's becoming so cold! Fighting in school, indifferent to the thought of killing someone . . . he thinks we want this! Just because you were a Death Eater, and still are, he thinks that the only way to please you is to become the stereotypical Death Eater!"

"Would you rather I turned myself in? The least sentence I could receive would be a life term in Azkaban." Then he paused, considering. "But you and Draco might not be punished. You were never complicit in dealing with the Dark Lord, and Draco is still uninitiated. Is that what you want?"

Narcissa sighed, and averted her eyes. "No. I love you too much to see you go to that fate. But I just wish there had been some other way . . .."

The Malfoy family was caught in a maze of loyalty, a trap of their own design.

Peter, too, had been a rat in his own maze. But he had freed himself -- by dying.

 

The pattern still remains

On the wall where darkness fell

And it's fitting that it should

For in darkness I must dwell

 

The door was locked -- only an idiot or someone with nothing to steal left their door unlocked in this district. Though Flint was both, he must have had some vestige of sense, and so had taken what precautions he could.

Not that they were any good against a wizard. "Alohomora," whispered Draco, touching his wand to the lock and opening the door. Though it grated alarmingly, the snores did not abate, and Draco padded into the room.

His boots clinked against beer bottles discarded on the floor, and crunched on indistinguishable plastic items. Draco felt his way across sagging furniture to the ramshackle staircase, and began to climb up.

The faint glow from the streetlight outside cast a barred pattern over his face as he reached the upper floor. There. There was Marcus Flint's bed, and now he could finish the task. "Obliviate." Then, just for good measure, he cast the spell again.

As the streetlight went out, finally giving up, Draco backed down the stairs, ready to head home.

 

Like the color of my skin

Or the day that I grow old

My life is made of patterns

That can scarcely be controlled

 

 

Lucius was doing something he hadn't done since he was eleven years old: he was writing to his father. Hadrian Malfoy, who never grew old. The sanctimonious man who disliked his own son for not being quite good enough, for following his own path. His father, who had been right.

 

Dear Father,

 

I think I understand now what you felt while I was growing up, because now the same thing is

happening to Draco. He's turning away from me. However, you at least could blame Grandfather

Torelli; I have only myself to blame.

Consider this an offering of peace between us. You have your side of this war, and I have mine, but

you are my father and that means we should never be enemies at heart.

Send all my love to Mother.

 

Your son,

Lucius Malfoy

 

Just as he attached the letter to the leg of the family owl, Paellas Athena, Lucius heard the door open. Draco was back from his mission and, from the pleased look on his face, he had succeeded. He nodded to his father as he passed, and then stopped in at the kitchen. The sounds of glasses being taken out of the cupboards and drinks being poured followed, and then the quiet sounds of conversation between Draco and his mother.

Lucius let the owl take flight, and then went to join his family.

Perhaps he was no longer in control of his own life, but Lucius had come to accept that. Very few people had any control over their lives, and even those who did could suffer. But one thing Lucius would not take without a fight was any threat to the welfare of his wife or his only child. He loved Narcissa as she did him, and he cared for Draco, which was not the same thing, but his caring was still strong. Together, their family would try to weather the war. If they lost, so be it.

 The niggling voice in his mind, the voice of his long-dead grandfather, whispered, "Because even if you lose, you're still more worthy than anyone else."

That voice would always be with him. And that was another thing Lucius had come to accept.