Father and Son

~Chapter 15~

Malfoy Manor

December 1997

'Finally,' a drawling, cold voice said before he had completely stepped out of the fireplace. 'I almost thought that fool Dumbledore had reconsidered his decision to let you come home.'

He was surprised to find someone waiting for him in the entrance hall. A man with long white-blond hair and a cruel face looked at him as if David was an owl that had delivered an urgent letter too late.

Lucius Malfoy!

David had seen the face of his grandfather when he had once researched his family's background in the Great Library of St. Mary in Diagon Alley, but Lucius's aura was more fearsome than he had imagined.

'Father...' David nodded, his voice indifferent.

'Your mother wishes to see you as soon as you've changed,' Lucius informed him, striding away, obviously expecting David to follow him.

The Manor looked dark. David noticed that all the curtains were drawn shut, but there was something about the corridors that made it darker as well. His parents must have redecorated the Manor when they moved in. The floor at his home was still the blank black marble, but the walls were white instead of dark lilac and that hideous flower pattern on the tapestry.

'So you were made Head Boy,' Lucius said.

David wondered why this should be news to Lucius after more than a quarter of the year had passed.

'Your mother kept me informed while I was in Azkaban.'

So there hadn't been any contact between his father and his grandfather at least since this summer. David cursed inwardly. Hermione had preferred to spend the evening with Ron and Harry instead of informing him about his father, saying it was 'important'.

'Narcissa was appalled at Dumbledore's decision to make that filthy Potter-loving Mudblood Head Girl. She was concerned for you having to share a room with such dirt.'

David felt his face grow hot with rage.

'I don't associate with her,' he said, trying to keep his rage down.

'I didn't expect anything else from you,' Lucius responded.

David knew that he already hated his grandfather.

'Go change!' Lucius ordered, entering his study, leaving David standing in the dark hallway.

Think! Where used to be father's bedroom? And were would he find Narcissa Malfoy?

He knocked and opened the door of his father's study.

Lucius looked up from his desk, frowning.

'Yes?' he said, irritated.

'Where can I find... Mum?'

'When did you start to call your mother 'Mum'? You're seventeen after all!' Lucius sneered. David's cheeks burned and he hoped that the darkness of the rooms would hide his obvious embarrassment.

'I'm sorry, Father. Where can I find Mother?'

'How the hell should I know?' Lucius snarled. 'Ask the servants! Or do I look like a house elf all of a sudden?'

The servants! Why hadn't he thought about that?

He quickly closed the door and called for one of the house elves, which he knew had been in his Father's family for many years.

The small creature appeared and led him to his chambers as he requested.

'And where can I find my mother?' he asked.

'Mistress is in winter parlor, Master Draco,' the house elf squeaked.

'Very well, you're dismissed,' David said and entered his father's bedroom.

While he searched through the wardrobe to find something to change into, he found a wide black cloak with a hood and mask. He knew pictures and paintings of Death Eaters. He had seen them often enough to recognize what he now held in his hands.

He put it back into the wardrobe, disgusted at even touching it.

The robe he put on was black with a small silver Malfoy crest on it.

The Noble House of Malfoy....

For the first time in his life, David felt ashamed to be a Malfoy. On the other hand, he suddenly felt proud to be Draco Malfoy's son.

He decided to search for the winter parlour to find Narcissa Malfoy. He knocked softly at the door.

'Entrée,' a cold voice could be heard through the door, and David hoped that her French invitation to enter didn't mean she would be talking to him in French. His father spoke French fluently, as did Diana, but David had always hated the language and never bothered to learn it.

'Mother? You wanted to see me?' David entered the room.

His eyes fell on a black haired witch with heavy lids and a mad glint in her dark eyes. Her face was pale and skinny and gave her the look of only having a skull instead of a face. But the way her high cheekbones stood out and her mouth quirked into a smirk... David couldn't help but think that she reminded him very much of his elder sister... although there was something that definitely spoke against a similarity to Amaris. David guessed it was her eyes, but he wasn't entirely sure.

There was someone else in his time of whom she strongly reminded him. A girl in Amaris's year, a Slytherin. Her name was Malice, but David couldn't recall her real last name since she was always just called Malice Black.

'Look who's returned from his Weasel-whore at Hogwarts!' the witch greeted him as if he was a five-years-old.

'Bella!' a sharp voice from another corner of the parlour scolded her.

Narcissa Malfoy rose from her seat and strode towards David.

Bellatrix Lestrange! Recognition dawned on him. How could he forget that face? This was his infamous grand-aunt, Bellatrix, the one guilty of more murders and torturing than many of her fellow Death Eaters could have dreamed of.

Narcissa took him in her arms and hugged him tightly. Her long blonde hair fell around him and covered their faces. 'I missed you so much, my son,' she whispered and kissed his forehead, before she released him again and faced Bellatrix.

'Who do you think you are, facing my son with such an accusation?' she snapped at Bellatrix.

Bellatrix just laughed. It made his hair stand on end.

'My dear sister, you just told me that you cannot understand why he would lower himself to... no, better on such a plebeian wench,' Bellatrix responded, smirking.

Narcissa glared at her.

'I think it's none of your business! Neither yours, mother, nor yours!' He responded Bellatrix's glance with a cold mask on his face.

Blaise was right. It was useless to get all worked up about some name calling, and so he had decided to face these accusations with indifference.

Narcissa wrinkled her nose.

'You could have done better, Draco. But if it pleases you to... spend time with such a girl, then it's your own business as long as she becomes nothing more than your whore,' she said.

David shrugged. 'Whatever you say, mother.'

He winced inwardly. It was one thing to defend himself, but was Draco Malfoy able to be so openly rude to his mother?

Apparently, he could, because Narcissa chose to ignore his last sentence.

'What about that old fool Dumbledore? Is he still 'training' his students against the big bad Death Eaters?' Bellatrix asked.

David sat down in one of the armchairs, taking his time to think of an answer.

'Did I tell you about the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher?' he asked casually.

'Inkspell!' Bellatrix hissed. 'Blasted Woman! Fights like a man. She's not one to duel... she'll take you out from behind. True Slytherin, the old bitch!'

'You went to school with her?' David asked

'She was in her seventh year when I came to Hogwarts,' Bellatrix said. 'She tried to harm the Head Girls reputation, because she wanted to be Head Girl instead. The nerves of that poor, stupid Hufflepuff Head Girly were wrecks after leaving Hogwarts.'

'Why didn't she become a Death Eater? I mean, she has potential, hasn't she?' David was curious now.

'Not every Slytherin with 'potential' can be a Death Eater!' Bellatrix snapped.

'Has she ever tried?'

'No. She went to South Africa right after Hogwarts. She always wanted to go to the army. Some people like it to kill legally. I mean, where's the difference?' Bellatrix laughed sharply. 'Killing is killing no matter what you kill for. And I, for myself, like to kill whenever I want and not only because it was decided by the government. In a way, it's cowardly of her isn't it?'

'She's a Slytherin, isn't she?' David pointed out. 'We're not the bravest. If it means that I keep my life, I'm going to be a coward.'

Narcissa looked at him contemplatively.

Bellatrix's eyes sparkled and her lips curled to a cruel smirk. 'But can you be brave if that's what's going to save your life, my dear boy?'

'We'll see, won't we?' David said, confidently.

'Exactly! I'm curious about the development of your fighting skills....'

Bellatrix pulled out her black wand.

As self-confident as he had been up to now, being asked to duel with his mad grand-aunt scared the hell out of him.

'Bella, he's just arrived from school,' his grandmother put in.

'He's a Death Eater, Cissy! The boy's got to be able to fight at anytime!' Bellatrix barked.

Narcissa wrinkled her nose.

'Come, boy. We're going to use the dungeons for our little training-session. I'm sure your mother would be devastated if we ruined her precious winter parlour.'

Following Bellatrix, David desperately searched for an excuse, but it seemed there was nothing he'd get away with. Bellatrix Lestrange would accept nothing.

Sighing deeply, he steeled himself for what would be coming.

Duelling had always been one of his favourite additional education lessons of those his father had forced them to take. His mother had been everything but pleased with the lessons Professor Snape had given her children, and she'd probably forbidden them if she'd known which kind of spells and curses they had learned behind the doors of the Malfoy dungeons, which David now passed. The dungeons seemed to look like he knew them from his time. Apparently, his mother hadn't bothered to waste her time with these.

The Malfoy siblings usually spend a lot of their holidays in that place to work on their duelling abilities. David knew that a lot of his schoolmates didn't have the slightest chance against him or his sisters, and the training Inkspell had put them through until then was no problem for him, but this was a trained Death Eater with probably much more real-life experience than some students.

Bellatrix opened a door and they entered one of the duelling rooms.

'Come on, nephew! Show me what Inkspell and Dumbledore have taught my little boy!' Bellatrix said in her shrill baby-voice.

David pulled out his wand.

Looking at it, he cursed inwardly, because he'd already noticed the difference between his father's wand and his own. Although wands of family members were mostly similar, differences remained.

Draco's wand was cold - not physically cold - it was more the feeling it conveyed, the mood of the wand that a wizard felt when his magic streamed out of his soul and into the wand. And while David always thought of his wand as very flexible and wide-ranged, Draco's was canalizing and firm.

Bellatrix bowed and David quickly repeated the movement.

'Impedimenta!' Bellatrix opened the duel.

David blocked the spell. He stepped back though, through the force of it.

At first he remained passive while Bellatrix sent one curse after the other, trying to block them or to send them in another direction, to evade or to repel it.

He noticed that Bellatrix scrutinized him carefully. At times she laughed when she saw him strive or got to send him flying to the ground. He also realized that Bellatrix was a non-verbal fighter. She only used words to make some spells and curses more forceful or to mock him by naming what she threw at him.

Diana had always despised this technique, because it weakened before one got to show one's strength. But in the many lessons Snape had given them, David had learned that knowing your enemy is the crux in a fight. Diana had always claimed that you also needed to know how your enemy defended himself so you could break the defence. In David's opinion, the defence of somebody wasn't important if you didn't give your enemy the chance to attack, if you defended yourself properly against them. A "non-attacking enemy", like Snape always said, was no enemy. Diana was the aggressive part of them, the attack part. David liked to remain passive; he liked to react instead of acting.

And that was what he did when Bellatrix send a row of curses towards him. He had found her weak point. Using her inattentiveness at that point, he managed to get her hurled against the wall behind her. The stone did his work, because Bellatrix seemed to be slightly numb for a few more moments.

'Petrificus Totalus!' David shouted.

'Protego!'

'Diffin...'

'STUPEFY!' Bellatrix shrieked and only moments later repelled his curse. 'Stupefy! Stupef...'

Levicorpus! David thought. The spell only hit her briefly and so she was only raised up into the air for a few seconds and fell to the floor again.

She pushed her long black hair out of her face and stared at him indignantly.

'What? What did you just...?'

David didn't care what she had to say. She could still say it afterwards. It was only a distraction.

'Impedimenta!'

Bellatrix blocked it, and without saying a word, she managed to throw him backwards twice and then used his own spell against him.

David hung in the air with his head upside-down.

His wand had left his grasp long ago and now he was at her mercy.

'Don't you dare to think you could overthrow me by using the breaks I give you!' she snapped.

David snorted, which proved to be rather difficult in his recent position.

'Here, son!' A voice from the door made both Bellatrix and David turn their heads to see Lucius standing there, who threw his wand towards David.

He caught it and within a second freed himself from the spell that kept him hanging.

Accio wand!

Draco's wand came flying towards his outstretched left hand. He immediately felt that the wand was more receptive for him all of a sudden. And then realization hit him: his father was left-handed and therefore his wand was used with the left hand.

Bellatrix laughed sharply. 'Every little witch knows that you can't use two wands at once!'

David smirked. 'We'll see.'

'I taught you better, Draco, as to try such a foolish thing,' Lucius put in, shaking his head.

'Come on, boy, come on!' The black-haired witch laughed and threw her wand away. 'I can't defend myself. If you're able to attack me with two wands you win, but if you're cheating somehow, I'll have my wand back sooner than you can hide in this damned Manor. You know no one can fool your aunt Bella!'

The smirk had left David's face as he closed his eyes to concentrate on the spell.

When he looked up again to voice it, Bellatrix had pointed her wand at him again, smirking. At the same time as his grand-aunt screeched her own curse, which shot towards him, the words left David's tongue:

'Protegere Incario!'

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