The Chess Set

Chapter 4

Most of the manor had been cleaned and restored - although certainly not to its former glory, its occupant freely admitted. Draco Malfoy didn´t care that much, really. He´d restored his home more out of a sense of familial obligation rather than a true desire to occupy the place.

During the process, his father´s study had gone untouched. It was difficult for him to go in there, even now with his father dead and gone. As a young child, he´d liked the room - the tall bookcases filled to bursting with enchanted volumes, the curio cases stuffed full of intriguing magical objects, and the imposing walnut desk with high-backed chair in Slytherin green leather. It was only as Draco grew older that he came to dislike the room, coming to grips with what it truly represented.

Draco´s life hadn´t been a simple one, balancing the fear and love of his father with his emerging conscience. Taught to hate from birth, he´d learned that lesson with vehemence. It was only as he´d grown older that he´d begun to consider things in a different light - that his hate had been tempered somewhat. What he had learned for all those years no longer made the sense that it had. He had found no answers to the questions emerging in his mind. `Loyalty and obedience´ was practically the Malfoy motto and questions were not allowed.

Even as he´d sought the answers within himself, Draco had remained loyal, maintaining the precarious balance between his father and his soul. Fear had played a part in it - no doubt about that - he´d long been smart enough to know what his father was, and to be afraid. He´d also found it difficult to be disloyal to the man who had raised him - who had groomed him so completely for a specific destiny.

It didn´t matter now, Draco told himself for the hundredth time. Motives didn´t count anymore. He had been the perfect son and the perfect Slytherin until almost the end, although he had never officially become a Death Eater. The final battle had been fought before the Dark Mark could be burned into his flesh, a small twist of fate for which Draco felt forever thankful.

The end was all that mattered. At least that´s what his barrister had told the panel at his trial. Draco´s ultimate actions had saved countless lives and had assisted in the destruction of Voldemort. The lawyer´s account of it had made it sound as though Draco Malfoy should be thrown parades in the streets. Malfoy chucked a little, remembering that blowhard. No parades for me, he thought wryly. He´d made his choice and had to live with it. He had betrayed his father, the Dark Lord, and everything that he had been taught his whole life.

What had his disloyalty bought him? The ever-analytical Slytherin, Draco had to admit that in the end it had been worth it. The Dark Lord would have been defeated regardless of the personal decision that he´d made. This way Draco had come out on the winning side. His actions in those final moments bought him freedom now, after a fashion, along with redemption of a sort. He could be his own man, no longer a toady to Voldemort or a pawn of his father. Best of all, while many Death Eaters were serving life sentences in Azkaban, Draco Malfoy was free.

His actions had not been without price, he knew. It had cost him a public trial, a hefty fine, and his father´s life. Draco had been willing to pay this price.

It was an interesting philosophical debate, Draco thought wryly. Which was the more perfect Slytherin action? To remain loyal to the Dark Lord who was doomed to be defeated, or to serve his own interests by betraying him? Draco rather thought the latter.

He had never bothered to clean out his father´s study. It wasn´t something to be trusted to house-elves, even though Malfoy Manor still housed an abundance of them. The room had sat unused since the Ministry´s final raid. The Aurors had confiscated everything particularly Dark, even finding the hidden chamber under the drawing room. That didn´t bother Draco, although he couldn´t imagine how they had found it.

The study had gathered dust for years, its memories hidden away behind a stout oaken door and iron lock. After enough time, Draco could even pass the door without descending into his own memories. He´d fallen into a happy balance of ignoring it and living quietly.

Things changed with the letter.

The letter from Hogwarts came unexpectedly, a tawny owl dropping it onto Draco´s breakfast tray one winter morning. He was stunned when he saw the crest and even more surprised to he read the contents. They couldn´t possibly be serious, he thought. And yet he knew that they were. It was unbelievable. Draco Malfoy, son of a Death Eater, Slytherin, and traitorous turncoat, was being offered a teaching position at Hogwarts - Defense Against the Dark Arts. He blinked rapidly, reading the letter several times.

Severus Snape, the headmaster, had signed the parchment. Draco felt a small stab of revulsion as he read Snape´s name, bitter thoughts coming unbidden to his mind. Snape was another who had betrayed his father and the Dark Lord. Worse yet, he had been a spy for years, selling out those few friends he had in the echelon of Death Eaters. Draco sighed, reminding himself quickly that he was not one to judge on the subject of being a traitor. Indeed, he was the reason that Snape was still alive to be headmaster at Britain´s best wizarding school.

Draco stared at the letter a long time, thinking. Was this a chance for a new start? A chance to do something other than live out his remaining long years alone in this manor?

He sent the owl back with his response. A rash decision, he realized, watching the owl flap out of sight, but one that felt right. Perhaps it was time to let go of the past.

A fresh start on his mind, Draco decided it was time to clean out the study. The room that moments before held only memories of his failures now offered him opportunity. He would purge those memories once and for all.

Draco decided that he would donate everything to the school. They could use the books in particular, he knew, the library having been almost completely destroyed during the war.

Draco unlocked the study door and eased it wide. Heavy draperies darkened the room. Through the gloom he could see the disarray of overturned furniture and slashed tapestries. His feet crunched on broken glass, the smashed remnants of the curio cases strewn about. The result of the Ministry´s raid, Draco recalled. He stepped hesitantly inside, disconcerted that he could still smell the distinctive scent of his father in the room, even after all these years.

Striding through the gloom quickly, he opened the draperies. Choking through the thick plumes of dust released from the fabric, Draco unlocked and opened the windows, grateful for the chilly breeze that removed the smell of his father from the room. The day was bright and winter sunlight burst into the room, driving out the darkness. Draco stood for some time, quietly looking around. The memories were very fresh in his mind, but he hoped that the cleaning would help with that.

Conjuring several large boxes, Draco picked up and examined the books that had been thrown carelessly on the floor. He remembered the Aurors pulling down whole shelves of books searching for forbidden volumes. Many of the books were old - they´d been his grandfather´s and before that, his grandfather´s grandfather´s. Some dated back as far as the Malfoy lineage could be traced, and that was a good long time. Dumped carelessly on the floor amidst the rubble of the smashed curio cases and battered furniture, Draco found some of the thick leather bindings were split and their pages torn. Some books near a broken window had been water stained. Some had been stepped upon, dirty boot prints evident, although now obscured with several years worth of dust.

It was a shame, he thought as he picked up the books. Draco placed them carefully into the boxes, smoothing any crumpled pages, telling himself the bindings could be repaired. Then he started on the shelves, some of which had been left surprisingly undisturbed. He kept only some family photo albums - not because he ever wanted to look at them again, but because he couldn´t bear to put them in the box.

It took him some time to finish with the books, the stack of boxes growing to a small mountain in the corner of the room. Finally, it was done. Draco sat down at the desk, feeling peculiar to be in his father´s chair. As a child, he´d never been allowed to be alone in the study, and he´d certainly never had the nerve to sit in this seat. Pushing his feelings of discomfort aside, he smiled just a little, telling himself again that it was a good day for change. Perhaps it would be the start of better things to come. The new term at Hogwarts would start just after Christmas, and Draco was looking forward to being there.

Rummaging through the desk for a piece of parchment and a quill, Draco found the contents in disarray. He located ink and quills finally, and in the top left drawer he found a stack of parchment underneath a wooden box. He pulled out the box and set it on the desk. Parchment, quill, and ink assembled, he composed a letter to Madam Pince, who he knew was still the librarian at Hogwarts. She´d never liked him, favoring the studious Ravenclaws and, of course, that know-it-all Granger. Still, he knew this gift would be received appreciatively, even despite it being from him. The state of the Hogwarts library would ensure that at least.

The letter sent off with his ancient eagle owl, Draco picked up the wooden box curiously. It was quite pretty - richly inlaid in a variety of colored hardwoods. Instinctively, he checked it for curses. None found, he opened the top, surprised to find a chess set inside. He knew that his father hadn´t cared much for the game. The huge marble set on which Draco had learned as a child was little more than an impressive decoration for the drawing room. Draco examined the pieces closely, finding them to be carved stone of good quality.

He hadn´t seen anything like it. Or had he? Something nagged at him as he examined the chess figures. He thought perhaps he had, indeed, seen them somewhere before. Was it here in the study? He didn´t think so, but he couldn´t recall for certain.

Draco idly fiddled with the chess figures. Conjuring a chessboard, Draco smiled as the pieces sprang to life when they touched the black and white squares. After their long sleep in the box, the chessmen were anxious to play, shouting words of encouragement. Draco was not particularly fond of chess, and not having any handy opponents, he had to disappoint the chessmen. He chuckled a bit as he started putting the pieces back into their box.

A sudden thought struck him, as he held the king, examining it closely. "Who owns you?" he asked.

The tiny king huffed as though insulted, but he finally answered in a regal intonation. "We are in the possession of one Lucius Malfoy."

Draco sighed. Well that was obvious, wasn´t it? He wasn´t quite ready to give up. "In whose possession were you before Lucius Malfoy?"

The king, after another grunt of displeasure, intoned, "Harry Potter."

Draco dropped the piece into the box with a sharp intake of breath. Harry Potter? If that was true then he must have seen the set at Hogwarts. That was why he remembered it. Potter and Weasley sometimes played chess in the Great Hall, he recalled. He couldn´t remember what pieces they had used. There was no real reason he should. It wasn´t as if Potter and Weasley had been his friends. He frowned as he remembered the many run-ins he´d had with the duo over their school years.

Things had changed a bit with the war. His loathing of the duo - and Granger - had eased somewhat in the face of his father´s rabid hatred. Draco disliked and envied them - Harry for his fame and nobility, Ron for his humor and many siblings and friends, and Hermione for her good marks - but he no longer thoroughly despised them.

Draco didn´t know how his father had come to have Potter´s chess set, but he was smart enough to know it was probably ill-gotten gains of some sort. He sighed, annoyed, looking at the box. This was just more of a mess for him to clean up. Of course, he could just chuck the set out. Or he could put it away and forget about it. Somehow he knew he would do neither. It wasn´t a difficult decision to make, and he was quite surprised at himself. Draco wrapped the chess box in paper. He called for another owl and started to write a letter but the words wouldn´t come. The snowy owl, formerly his father´s, and much like the one Potter had owned during their school years, waited on the edge of the desk, waiting, while Draco sat with quill in his motionless hand.

What was he supposed to say? Both `Dear Potter, here´s your chess set back. Sorry for holding onto it all these years´ and `Dear Potter, sorry my father stole this from you. Best wishes´ sounded equally stupid. He didn´t know why he was bothering. Best to just get rid of it. Throwing down the quill and shooing away the owl, Draco picked up the box and tossed it into the bin that was almost filled with the destructed remnants of the room.

He sat back down at the desk and fiddled with some papers for a while. Then he called in a house-elf and arranged for delivery of the books to the school. Throughout his tasks, he found his gaze returning to the bin. The small box sat quite prominently on top of the stack of rubbish. No, he thought, that won´t do.

He walked to the bin and looked at the box some more. Damn that Potter, he thought. Damn that noble bastard. For an instant the old hatred was back. The strength of the feeling was nearly overwhelming. He felt momentarily powerful, something that he hadn´t felt in a long time. Hate was power. Tempting, so tempting, he thought, trying to shove the old feelings away.

It was difficult. He thought again of the letter from Hogwarts and the time of new beginnings. Groaning in frustration, he pulled the box out of the bin. He hurried from the study.

Pulling on his cloak, Draco Apparated to a park in Muggle London. It was a relatively safe Apparition point, he knew, deep in a thicket of trees, and unlikely to be seen by Muggles. This was about as close as he could get to Potter´s residence magically, security on `The Boy Who Defeated the Dark Lord´ still tight against the vengeance of Death Eaters still on the loose. That annoyed him as well. Glorious Potter, with his entourage of Aurors, friends, and fawning masses, choosing to live in a mostly Muggle section of London.

It was only a short walk through the park, but Draco welcomed the chance to clear his mind in the fresh air and decide what he would say to Potter. Perhaps this was a time for new beginnings, after all.

So intent on his destination and so deep in thought, Draco didn´t notice the dark-haired Muggle man following him. Everything went dark in an instant of pain and disbelief.