Patriarchy

My muses.


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Patriarchy

Prologue

"Tradition exists to make sure that children won't exceed their parents."

The Malfoy family was one of tradition. Tradition was everything they believed in, a long chain of values and moral standards, passed from father to son. Exclusively. Women were excluded from this chain. It was all about males, fathers and heirs.

Strangely, the idea of having children never entirely appealed to Draco.

But, as he was soon taught, this was no decision of his. It had been like that for ages, fathers picking wives for their sons, for the meanings of reproducing, for passing the pure blood and exquisite genes to the next one in queue.

That point of view had always disgusted Draco.

The Malfoy family had always possessed power, and, being both ambitious and greedy, had always searched to enforce it. A chain of flawless Slytherins. And a chain of humiliation and suppression.

Draco couldn't even remember when it had started. If there was a starting point at all. If not rather the very moment his mother had given birth to him, his father had already started to infiltrate him the old and traditional way of raising a son, an heir, in the Malfoy family. As cold and controlled as Lucius Malfoy might have been in public, as raging and immediate he was in private. Draco soon learned not to make any mistakes. Not to show any weaknesses. It was all about strength. And Power. Power, which Lucius Malfoy was not willing to give up.

Draco knew that it was a tradition, that, at a certain age, fathers handed the family affairs into the hands of their sons, being well-fed for the rest of their lives, and being brought to some lonely Manor in the countryside, so their sons could have their way with the heritage, the business - and the power. Lucius Malfoy, nevertheless, was not willing to hand over.

Chapter 1: The Life After

"One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one."
--Agatha Christie

Draco pressed his teeth together so hard it hurt. There was an incredible loathing shining in his eyes, directed towards his opposite.

"I did not yet allow you to rise, so get seated again." Lucius' voice was so falsely soft and polite, yet his face was a mask of stone, only one cruel line showing around his lips. Draco remained standing next to his armchair. His hands were clutched to fists. He was 18 years old, dammit, he was of age, he would not obey, he would not let himself be told what do to by an old man!

"Get seated, I said." Draco flinched at the sound of Lucius' voice before he could force himself not to do so. He wanted to whine and bow when he caught the look in Lucius' eyes.

"Sit." Lucius' voice was ice, and it cut right through the bonds of Draco's resistance. And with all the power he could muster, Draco forced himself into the armchair. It was bigger than his father's, to make himself feel smaller. And it worked. Draco could only very hardly keep his hands from trembling.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, son, you should by now have learned this lesson." Lucius' voice returned to a casual, almost lazy tone, and Draco went on gritting his teeth.

This lesson. Obedience. The first of all. There was no way to not obey Lucius, no matter how hard and how often he tried. His father must've noticed the way he'd struggle and strain against the ties of obedience that were forced upon him. But he didn't care - Lucius never cared. Draco knew he had power, he had knowledge, he was grown-up and ready. But Lucius always made him feel like a child. There was no way in resisting him, even though he didn't even use an Imperius Curse. Draco flinched at the thought of how horrible that one would be. He sometimes wondered whether it would make any difference. The humiliation, the shame, it would all be the same. Being forced to do something you don't want to, out of feeble reasons, most of the time just for Lucius' perverted joy of dominating. As he had done it with his mother, Draco soon realized at the end of these thoughts.

Narcissa bent. There were no fights between her and Lucius, there never had been. As long as Draco had been there, they were never fighting. One look from Lucius, and she bore her cross. She'd take it all: his humiliations, his affairs, and his hedonism. Because he knew how to make her suffer, he freely did. And Draco was disgusted at her for that. For not standing up against him, for letting him do these things to her. For making Draco himself feel sorry for her. He hated that. And he decided, one day in his late teens, he wouldn't let him do that. He wouldn't be like his mother.

And here he was, sitting again, unable to stand up, literally, against him. And he cursed himself for the trouble he had, keeping his hands still and his breath even. For his similarity to his mother. And to him. He knew he was similar to Lucius - not only on the outside, (he had his father's eyes, for sure) but on the inside. Draco knew that Lucius had flinched before his own father as Draco did for him now. Perhaps this was why he felt this great joy in humiliating and torturing Draco, letting him feel his supremacy. To repeat whatever his own father had done to him, without even noticing that he was tracking down the same path, that he was a mindless victim of traditions he had surely hated himself. But Draco was not like him in this case, Draco noticed. Draco hated even more. He detested every single inch of power Lucius had over him, and that he used it so freely to destroy Draco's self-consciousness, his pride, and his will.

Lucius hadn't said anything, but when he spoke, the ice in his voice sent chills down Draco's spine. "When the ministry asks you, you are going to consent to their proposals." Draco nearly jumped out of his seat.

"But! Father!" Lucius interrupted his yell with a sharp movement of his hand.

"There won't be any debates concerning that. I need you in the Ministry for making a friendly appearance and wiping clean the image of the name Malfoy that has been so piteously smudged by the former happenings."

Draco couldn't help but snort. Piteously smudged because of him! Because that fool had let himself be caught supporting the Dark Lord and because the Dark Lord had been mercilessly destroyed by...well, everybody knew by whom. And now it was Draco's turn to wipe out the mistakes of his father in the minds of some of the Ministry's fools? By doing some desk-job? He didn't want to sort out papers concerning the abuse of magic within the last 10 years, nor did he want to go brown-nosing with Fudge. He was young and - as his N.E.W.T.'s had proven - he was fairly talented. He ought to do something different than stupid jobs for the Ministry. This was not what he had aimed for!

"Father - no," he found himself answering loudly and clearly. This answer sent sparks to Lucius' eyes, and Draco knew he'd better flee this very second, but he was glued to the spot. "I refuse to wipe out the mistakes you have made from the minds of these stupid Ministry guys!" He saw Lucius hesitating, then taking some steps towards him, but he couldn't keep himself from continuing.

"I refuse to throw away myself just to clean the name you dirtied!" Even though Draco knew what would happen, he let out a strangled cry, mixed with a gasp, when the curse hit him. It made him cringe, and he rolled off the armchair and hit the ground, but he didn't feel the pain. There was greater pain exploding behind his forehead, forcing him to moan and sob, but not to beg. Malfoys never begged. Not even from release of this unbearable pain that the curse inflicted on him. Lucius soon lost the joy in watching his son crawl on the floor, bent in pain. The only way to bend him.

"Disgraceful child of mine," he muttered through his teeth and made sure Draco heard him. He turned around. "You don't need time to think about it, for your decision is already made," Lucius threw back to him when he left the room, and Draco clenched his hands, hitting the ground in righteous anger and still sobbing. Yet, his vision soon blackened as he fainted out of just being overpowered by his lack of will and physical stamina to stand both humiliation and pain.

When he awoke, he felt something cool running down his temple. He soon found that it was a droplet of water emerging from the cloth on his forehead, soaking wet and chilling, placed there in order to soothe his headache or awake him. His lids fluttered, and as he opened his eyes, his vision first blurred, then a sharper picture of Narcissa Malfoy standing next to him came into focus. She slightly narrowed her eyes.

"Well, well, so you awoke," she stated, perfectly calm. "You better get up and get dressed, then, he awaits us for dinner."

Draco wasn't hungry, he was in pain, and he certainly had no wish of seeing his father again this evening. Or even this month. Or this year. But he slid the cloth off his forehead and straightened up, ignoring the sharp flash of pain inside of his skull.

"Now, don't be stupid, boy, hurry - or else." He didn't even want to think about "or else", not after what happened this afternoon. "Or else" was no alternative. He wouldn't be able to stand "or else."

So he went to the dinner, sat down, and controlled himself. He wouldn't give his father another opportunity to punish him, he wouldn't be that stupid. So he only spoke when he was asked, he watched his manners, he was arrogant and cold. He returned to being the Malfoy he was supposed to be.

When his father finally allowed him to leave the table, he bowed to his father, wished him good night, kissed his mother on the cheek, and went straight for his room. He threw himself on the bed. The sheets were white, purely white, contrasting to the dark frame of the bed, and he inhaled their soothingly clean smell. Then he rolled on his back. As he did so, his glance met the picture placed on his nightstand: the photo of the graduating class of Hogwarts. He straightened up, sat on the edge of his bed, and took the photo to look at it. People were waving at him; some were smiling, but most of the faces were earnest. You could feel a certain tension in this picture, and Draco remembered that it had been absolutely quiet when this picture had been taken. Nobody had spoken - it had been the literal calmness before the storm. Only days after this picture had been taken, the war had erupted, horribly, quickly and painfully. Draco had always believed that he would watch this war with excitement, perhaps even joy. But as it happened, he'd only felt sickness. He remembered cries and noise, the sound of bodies hitting the ground. He wouldn't have thought that it would be so personal. He wouldn't have thought that it would be so near.

He looked down at the ones that had been lost in the war, those who hadn't returned. Those who died of their wounds, or those who were just found dead. Or mad. Or worse. And he looked down at the Boy Who Lived, the boy he was supposed to hate. But now all he could do was notice the weary expression of his face. Harry's face expressed the sickness that he felt when he thought of the war. And maybe, he thought, that was because Harry had already seen it. So now, he didn't feel anything about Harry anymore. He didn't even know where Harry was, he just knew that he was alive. But he was as well, so that didn't mean anything.

Only some miles away, in a bedroom shabbier than Draco's, Harry looked at the same picture. His hands slightly trembled at it, and he closed his eyes as his head started to ache. Not his scar, anymore. He just sat there in the dim light of the evening, watching the persons in the photo, and his index finger trailed over it, counting those who had fallen in the war. Thirty-six. Why hadn't he fallen?

Because he hadn't allowed himself to fall. If he had fallen, Voldemort would have lived. There would have been even more deaths if that had happened. But now he sat here, and he felt nothing but emptiness. The Boy Who Lived had saved the Wizard World. Again. And the Boy Who Lived felt nothing but sickness at it. Again. He had murdered, he had made himself guilty as Voldemort had been, maybe not that often, but he still remained a murderer. He wished he could flee from this world, because there was nowhere he could go where his memories wouldn't find him.

People had died; braver, greater, smarter, better people than him. And he hadn't saved them. He had won the war - but paid a horrible price.

And he wanted to become a normal boy again. He wanted to go out, to study, to meet friends (to have friends), to live. But here he was, 18 years old, and nothing to see, nowhere to go. He was a wizard and he would always remain one. He had learned nothing but wizardry, and there was no way to return to the Muggle World, where no one had heard of him. He took a closer look at the photo.

In this photo, he once seemed to get lost in the mass of students. He enjoyed that. He had never been just one of them, he had always been special, like he wore some kind of stigmata, some kind of curse, that always made him stand out. Made him untouchable. And, if he remembered it right, that was the lowest of all casts. His eyes traveled over the rows of students and looked at those who had died in the war. Many losses on the Slytherin-side. Many children sent off into war by their parents, fighting for a goal they didn't believe in, dying for a leader they had never even seen. Harry sighed, and then his eyes traveled to the edge of the photo. Draco Malfoy stood at the very edge of row. Had he fallen? Harry didn't remember him being under the dead bodies he had seen. Did that mean that Draco was still alive? His father surely had sent him into war...Harry's lips curled into a bitter smile. Draco surely happily ran off into war, flags raised for his father's goals. And Voldemort's. And now, now that Voldemort was destroyed? What would Draco be doing, alive, but without the power his father had been fighting for? Harry put the picture back to where it had been standing and snorted. Here he stood, and the best he had to do was to think about Draco Malfoy.

He threw himself on the bed and buried his head in his arms. But he, himself, didn't have anything better to do than thinking about what he would be doing in his near future. He had no idea. He had wanted to become an Auror, to fight Voldemort, but now that he'd done exactly that, he was left with nothing. There was no Voldemort to fight anymore. He wouldn't be able to go back and get a job, because he was Harry Potter, and everything that Harry Potter seemed to be of use for was fighting Voldemort. Now that it was over...The Boy Who Lived didn't exist anymore, he had no task, no job. Basically, he had no life at all. Because, basically, he didn't want the life that those who were left from the war forced upon him. He had had ideas once, and dreams, and all those were gone now. He didn't know where they went, but he wanted nothing more than to find them again.