Not Quite a Love Song, in Ten Scenes

Part 9: Family (or: All's Fair in Love and War)

Draco reappeared in the manor, slightly doubled over from the stomach-pulling effects of the Portkey. He stood outside the Silver-Green Guest Suite that the Dark Lord inhabited when he visited the Malfoy residence.

Potter, he knew, had been deposited right inside.

He looked up as quick steps approached on the corridor. There was a slight flush in Lucius Malfoy's otherwise pale face, and his eyes sparkled in a way Draco hadn't seen since his father's return from Azkaban. He grabbed Draco's arm.

"I felt both Portkeys come in - did it work?"

A small smile broke on Draco's lips.

"Yes, Father. He took and activated it, just as I promised."

Dumb git!

Lucius wrapped his arms around Draco and held him tight for a moment in a rare display of affection. He must have been frantic.

Then he let go and reached for the door handle. "Wait here."

Draco's mouth fell open. "But I caught him! I want to-"

"No, you don't," Lucius said with an air of absolute conviction.

All Draco could do was scowl at his father's back as Lucius slipped through the door, and try to get a peek into the suite. Without success - there were several rooms, and obviously You-Know-Who wasn't entertaining his... guest in the antechamber. He scowled even more fiercely at the closed door.

He sneaked up close to the panelled wood, knowing better than to press his ear against the door - it was surely warded, and frying half his face was not on the agenda, no matter how curious he was.

There was a scuffle and the hiss of flying curses inside, and then the telltale *snap* of a wand breaking.

They've got you now, Potter!

And yet, it took quite a while before Draco heard the first moan.

Draco had a split second vision of himself throwing open that door and striding in to deliver a few kicks and curses to the body writhing on the carpet. That would show the bastard!

The image was replaced by Draco walking in to find Potter chained naked to the far wall, and the Dark Lord turning to him with a sweeping gesture, "Would you like to have him, young Malfoy?", and Potter's gaze, torn between hope and horror.

And finally he saw himself storming into the suite, firing curses and hauling Potter away from the Dark Lord and off to Hogwarts by return Portkey.

He squeaked audibly at that last image and took a few steps away from the door, just in case.

Slowly, the moans turned into screams, then panicked shrieks, and at last into the horrible, shrill mewling of a mouse being grilled alive over slow-burning coals.

Draco walked off towards the opposite end of the corridor, not fast enough to qualify as 'running', and not quite far enough for 'hiding'.

Even after the sounds had stopped, it took a long time before the Dark Lord came out of the room, casually wiping blood off his hands with black silk handkerchief embroidered with serpents.

He nodded to Lucius, who stepped out from behind him (without blood on him, Draco noticed to his relief) and gave Draco a lipless, thoroughly unsettling smile.

"Lucius, why don't you call on those house-elves of yours? There's hero to be cleaned out of the carpet."

Draco saw his father's mouth quirk before the Dark Lord turned to him.

"Well, young Malfoy... I admit you have greatly impressed me tonight. You've succeeded where everybody else failed - myself included."

Draco squirmed inwardly. He wasn't sure whether to hear an admission of failure from the Dark Lord himself was a good thing. He might change his mind later, augmented with the Cruciatus Curse, or worse...

The Dark Lord seemed oblivious to his heretic thoughts, and stepped aside for a group of house-elves with buckets and cleaning utensils to let them troop into his suite.

"You have certainly made up for your family's lack of loyalty. And you more than deserve to receive the Dark Mark." Sharp red eyes came to rest on Draco's upper arm.

Draco licked his parched lips as unobtrusively as possible, and bowed low.

"My lord, you honour me greatly. But I was given to understand that I was to return to Hogwarts-" He threw his father a nervous side glance, who nodded. "I might be able to serve you better there if I am not carrying anything that would identify me as your servant?" Draco finished quickly.

"Prudent, like a Malfoy," the Dark Lord commented. "We will have you when you are ready, then." He inclined his head to Lucius. "I think this calls for a drink at the very least - will you join me, my friend?"

"I'll see my son off and be with you in a moment, my lord," Lucius said.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named nodded and turned, only to stop and fix those uncanny eyes on Draco once more.

"He did love you, you know," the Dark Lord said conversationally. "It was all over his thoughts even as he died." He grinned, an expression that clashed horribly with his lipless mouth. "How ironic that he did fall from the same blind trust that killed his parents."

Draco flinched. He'd been prepared for a lot - a harem of virgin love slaves as thanks, Potter as a plaything, Cruciatus out of sheer habit. But having the Dark Lord, bane of wizards all around the globe, terror of little children, Muggles and un-housebroken Crups, guilt trip him came as a bit of a surprise.

In silence, they watched the Dark Lord walk off towards the parlour. Then Lucius turned to Draco and flicked his wand to cast a Privacy Charm over the corridor.

"Are you mourning him, Draco?"

Draco pondered it for a moment. He was still trying to make sense of that half-second mental flash in which he'd seen himself rescue H--Potter. The mere fact that he had had that madcap notion at all still creeped him out like nobody's business. Then he shook his head.

"No, not really. I always hated him, and he harassed me, and I really, really wanted him gone. But..." He nodded at the door the house-elves had vanished behind, "... that sounded pretty harsh."

Lucius laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Then you have learned a valuable lesson today. Sometimes we have to do... unpleasant things for a good cause. And you have fought for the best - your family. You have lived up to our family's name today, my dragon. Mal foi."

He tucked a stray strand of hair behind Draco's ear.

"And I think you might just have terrified our Lord a little here," his father added. "Oh, he says he wants to have you as a Death Eater, but I doubt he'll ever trust you fully after tonight."

Draco gnawed on his lower lip, and Lucius smirked down at him.

"That's not a bad thing, Draco. In fact, I'd much rather have one member of the family uninvolved in the Dark Lord's day-to-day business, just in case. Of course the scales have tipped greatly in our favour now, but I wouldn't put it beyond that old coot at Hogwarts to pull a replacement saviour out of his hat." He stroked his cane with a pensive expression. "But for now, you'd better get back to school - it wouldn't do to raise suspicion that you had anything to do with the night's events."

Draco nodded and took hold of his Portkey again. Before he could say the word, Lucius ruffled his hair and smiled.

"And I think your achievements do call for a Lightning Bolt model after all."

Yes! Draco exulted. That broom alone would have been worth kissing and killing Potter, and being snubbed by You-Know-Who. As the Portkey carried him back to Hogwarts's dungeons, he happily pictured himself manicuring Lightning Bolt tail twigs with his silver-and-ivory tail clippers while his housemates looked on in envy.

And he was intensely proud that the thought 'And who am I to fly it against?' did never even enter the peripheries of his mind.

~ tbc. ~
Next: Epilogue (or: You Get What You Deserve)