Filios

Filios


Draco was too young to be really considered handsome. But all his young life, he had been told that he was beautiful. He had silverblond hair, silvergrey eyes, ghost-pale skin, and delicate elfin features. He had a slender, almost fragile build, even in childhood. Beautiful, they would whisper, tilting his head up to look at his face, stroking fingers through his silken hair, running their hands down his arms. Such a beautiful child.

He liked it, most of the time. He could widen his eyes at people, gaze at them from under long lashes, smile -- just a little -- and they would melt. They'd give him whatever he wanted. Beauty was a tool.

His father had taught him that. A tool to be used, whenever it was needed. Like the time a minor Ministry official discovered the secret cache of Dark Magic in their mansion. The official had been too important to kill, and knew it. But he was greedy, as well. He came by the mansion, secure in his importance, arrogant in his knowledge. He demanded money, for his silence. Blackmail.

Draco's father was a clever man. He always used the tools available to him.

Like his son's beauty.

"For the family honor," he had whispered into his son's ear, as he had done countless times before. "We'd be shamed if we were caught by the Ministry. We must stay powerful for the Dark Lord's return."

The words had snaked into the boy's mind, coiled warm around his soul. Yes. For the family honor.

The details always blurred, afterwards. But each time, whenever, they came back. A weight of memories -- imageflashes of hands on his shoulders, on his chest, his waist, parting his legs. Dark shadows against his pale skin. Heavy breathing in his ears, grunted unintelligible words, rhythmic force to brace against.

The struggle to hold back the tears.

It was for the family honor, after all. How lucky he was to have a family like his, rich in tradition, steeped in magic, full of pride.

Pride wouldn't let him shed the tears.

Pride made him grin every bit as fiercely as his father when they stood together, facing the Ministry official. When they told him that they'd spelled his little tryst into a Witness Globe. That if he ever tried to reveal their illegal trove, the Globe would be made public.

Reverse blackmail.

The official had a reputation to preserve. They never heard from them again.

Family honor intact.

---

Harder to understand was when his father would come in the middle of the night, to slip between the covers with him and caution him not to make a sound. Be quiet, boy, be silent as mice, still as the night. Don't make a sound, boy, not a sound.

So he stayed quiet. Not a whimper to betray them. Just the two of them, alone in the darkness.

He heard different reasons, then. Because you're mine, his father would whisper, harshly, his breath stuttering as he moved urgently under the blankets. Because you're beautiful. Because I'm the only one you really belong to, son, don't you ever forget it. Because you're mine, you're always mine, only mine, do you understand?

He would nod, biting his lip, burying his face in the pillow. He didn't understand. But if his father said it, it had to be true. His father was clever, was ruthless, was everything he wanted to be. His father was always right.

---

Draco loved school. He hadn't quite known what to expect. He'd thought he might be lonely, so far from his father's familiar half-lidded eyes and his mother's worried wringing hands. But he fit in perfectly. People there were just like they were everywhere else - respecting either his beauty, or his family name. Or both. Tools to be used as he wished, when he wished, just as his father had taught him. He could be strong without his father. Everyone deferred to him.

Well, almost everyone. Everyone but Harry Potter.

Biggest difference, there. Harry Potter, the Wonder Boy. Harry Potter, the Boy who Lived, the boy who as a mere child had driven back the Dark Lord. The boy with no family, with no beauty to speak of, and yet who carried more power with him than anyone. People shrank back at the mere mention of his name, and stared at the lightningbolt scar between his eyebrows as if it made him untouchable, immense.

Harry Potter, the only one who was unimpressed with Draco's family name and unfazed by his beauty.

A challenge, Draco thought, smiling lazily.

---

It turned out to be a bit of a long-term challenge. Life fell into a quiet rhythm for Draco. He would go to school and torment Potter. When he went home for the holidays, his father would make silent visits to his room. Then, he would go back to school and begin again.

One year Draco grew suddenly, as was the way of most boys that age. He went through his growth spurt while at school, outgrowing his robes in a flash, arms and legs longer, making him taller. He was still beautiful, still graceful, but sturdier somehow. Less delicate. When he went home for the holidays, his father visited his room again, a familiar dark shadow in the night.

This time, he didn't climb into the bed. "You're a man now, Draco," he said quietly, his words a mere breath in the stillness of the room. "You're a man grown. You'll behave like one."

"Yes, Father," Draco said, practiced obedience falling from his lips.

"Make me proud," his father said. And walked out, closing the door behind him.

Draco smiled into the darkness. "Too old for you, am I, Father?"

The years away from home had taught him a cynical sort of wisdom.

---

Frankly, he didn't miss his father's visits at all. He wouldn't have, even if he had liked them to begin with. He had Harry Potter to occupy his thoughts.

Potter's stubborn dislike drew him. He found it refreshing, a challenge that needed new tools to defeat. Potter was Draco's competition on more fronts than one - in class, in the halls at school, on the Quidditch field, in duels of wizardry. Draco used all the tricks his father had taught him - silken sarcasm, deception, even force. And yet Potter remained unimpressed and undefeated, refusing to defer to Draco as everyone else did.

Draco loved the challenge. He felt, strangely, quite possessive of the boy.

Harry Potter was his rival. His rival.

It was perhaps the first thing ever in his life that had been truly his own. Everything else had been given to him, but his rival Potter was his own creation.

---

Maybe that was why he defied his father that day, for the very first time. It was actually quite easy. Somehow he'd always thought it would take more effort. But just four simple words -- "No, Father," he said. "Potter's mine."

His father didn't notice. In fact, he acted as if he hadn't even heard. "This isn't a good time to talk back, son," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I need to get back into the Dark Lord's graces, now that he's come back into his power. He is... displeased with Narcissa and me. Since you go to school with Potter, you can lure him away from Hogwarts, and we can catch him. I've a plan. If we can bring the boy to the Dark Lord, he'll --"

"No, Father," Draco repeated, louder. "Potter's mine!"

His father blinked. "Excuse me?"

Draco's jaw firmed. "Potter. He's mine. My rival. I'll be the one to best him, not you."

His father's eyes narrowed. "You forget yourself," he said icily. "You forget who you belong to."

"Oh no," Draco said. He smiled, gazed at his father from under his long blond lashes, and watched him stiffen. "I could never forget who I belong to."

Quite deliberately, he walked around the desk to stand behind his father's chair, dropping his hands onto the broad shoulders. He let his hands move down his father's chest in a lazy caress, and smiled at the sudden intake of breath this caused. "I'm yours, Father," he whispered huskily into the sunblond hair. "Because I'm yours, only yours. Isn't that right?"

His father shivered. Flinched.

"You taught me that," Draco murmured against his father's skin. "You taught me everything I know." His hands slid down, then poised at his father's waist. "Aren't you proud of me, Father?"

"Draco..." His father's voice was strangled. "Get off me. Now."

Draco laughed musically. "Whatever you say, Father." With careless grace, he walked back around to the other side of the desk. "So you'll agree to leave Potter alone? I want to defeat him myself."

"I'll agree... to no such... thing." His father seemed to have trouble getting his breath back.

Draco propped himself on the desk, hands flat on the table. "You're not the only one with Witness Globes, you know."

"I'm... I what?"

Draco curved his lips in a deliberately beautiful smile, savoring the way the blood fled from his father's face. "I've learned everything you taught me," he repeated. "And Father - I disobey you in very few things. Give me this, and I won't give the Daily Prophet some presents to look at."

His father drew in a breath. "How dare you. I could use the Imperius curse on you. I could -"

Draco laughed aloud. "You could indeed. And Dumbledore wouldn't notice a thing, I'm sure. You don't want to lose your spy at Hogwarts, do you?"

Lucius Malfoy's knuckles clenched white on the armrests of his chair.

"Father," Draco breathed, stroking one hand delicately across his father's cheek, his chin. "Father, don't you love me?"

His father jerked away. "Do what you like," he ground out between clenched teeth. "I'll find another plan."

"Why thank you, Father!" Draco blew his father a kiss and walked out of the room, letting the door swing closed behind him.

Once outside, he leaned against the wall, a sour smile on his face.

His beauty was a tool, and he knew very well how to use it.

Draco Malfoy was fifteen years old.