Questions and Answers

little_bird

Story Summary:
What happens when the past collides with the present and threatens to cast the Potters' and Weasleys' lives into disarray...

Chapter 56 - Doomed to Repeat

Posted:
02/16/2011
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1,295


Draco curled in the window seat of his bedroom, like he had as a small child and stared out into the garden behind the house. Something I'm good at... he mused. He'd spent days trying to figure out the answer to the task Andrew had set him, going as far back as his earliest memories of trying to win his father's approval. Frustrated, he slammed a fist against the wall. It was impossible.

Grunting, he flung himself out of the window seat and yanked his clothes off, throwing them into a heap in the corner for Perri to collect in the morning. He jerked on his pajamas, making sure the sleeves covered his arms and fell into a disgruntled heap into bed. Draco grabbed one of the numerous pillows piled against the headboard of his bed and clutched it to his chest. He let himself think for a moment, what he might have been like if he'd been brought up the way Daphne had insisted on doing with Scorpius. Draco plopped the pillow over his face, hoping it would block out the insidious thoughts that reinforced his belief that his son was much better off without him.

xxxxxx

'You will perform the Cruciatus curse on him, Draco.'

Draco stood over huddled figure, his wand trained on its back, hesitating.

'You will do it, Draco. He's a traitor.'

The voice made Draco's skin crawl, but the oddly snake-like features of the face truly terrified him. The figure lifted its head, and Draco's fingers twitched around his wand. Scorpius' face was pale and drawn in the shadowy light of the fire.

The wand dropped from Draco's nerveless fingers, clattering loudly on the parquet floor. 'No...'

'You dare defy my orders?' Voldemort snarled, his voice rising in pitch, until it sounded like fingernails scraping with excruciating slowness over a chalkboard. 'CRUCIO!'

It was pain like nothing else Draco had ever known. 'Ahhhhhh!' His body convulsed in agony. He opened his eyes, barely able to make out Scorpius, frozen in horror. 'Run,' he gasped, before a fresh wave of pain flowed over him.

xxxxxx

'Draco!' Daphne shook him roughly. She contemplated slapping him, but decided against it, and continued to shake him until he woke with a sharp gasp.

'Where is he?'

'Who?'

'Scorpius...' Draco pulled the duvet up to his chin. He couldn't stop shivering.

'He's staying with a friend for the rest of the holiday.' Daphne began to walk out of the bedroom. 'Remember?'

'Stay,' Draco said suddenly. 'Just for a minute... Please...?'

Daphne paused for a moment and nearly walked through the door, but she perched uneasily in one of the armchairs in a corner of room. 'I was coming back up from the library, and you started screaming.' She pulled her hands into the sleeves of her dressing gown.

'I was dreaming...'

'Obviously.'

'He was making me use an Unforgivable on... on Scorpius...' Draco swallowed. His mouth felt like it had been lined in cotton wool. 'I couldn't do it...'

Daphne pulled her feet into the seat of the chair, wrapping her arms around her knees. 'I was under the impression you didn't care what happened to him one way or the other.'

'Is that what you think?' Draco breathed.

'When was the last time you asked about him? Or showed this much interest in him?' Daphne responded tartly. She set her feet on the floor and stood up. 'Good night, Draco.'

xxxxxx

Harry wearily shoved a file into his desk and pulled out the last one for the day. Draco peered around the edge of the door, before the rest of him followed. 'I'm early,' he stated.

'I know,' Harry said, writing a note in Draco's file. 'Sit down,' he added, indicating the chair with his quill, while he rummaged in a drawer for a vial of Veritaserum and set the vial on the desk.

Draco picked it up with a sigh and picked at the wax seal around the cork in the neck of the vial. 'What's he like?'

Harry glanced up at Draco over the rims of his glasses. 'Who?'

'Scorpius,' Draco said, nearly mouthing the word he spoke so softly.

'Oh.' Harry sat back in his chair and set the quill down on the desk. 'He's bright and intelligent. Earns good marks in his classes. Considerate. Gets on well with the others in his House -'

'In other words, everything I'm not,' Draco interrupted bitterly.

'Why don't we get started?' Harry suggested, motioning to the vial, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had turned. After Draco downed the potion, he ran through his usual list of questions for Draco, checking his wand, scribbling down Draco's responses in his file. He closed it, and was in the process of replacing it in his desk and locking the drawer when Draco spoke again.

'I'm rubbish at everything,' he said sadly.

'I wouldn't go that far,' Harry stammered.

'No,' Draco stubbornly maintained, as one who'd had too much to drink. 'Nothing I did was ever good enough, don't you see?' Harry was tempted to try and convince Draco he didn't really mean it, but just because he was under the influence of Veritaserum, it didn't mean he'd lost his senses along with his inhibitions. 'That Healer I've been going to see - and I know you know about him because my watchdogs tell you everything - I'm supposed to tell him something I'm good at, and I've been thinking and thinking about it for almost a month now. And nothing.'

Harry's brow furrowed in concern. In all the years he'd been interviewing Draco, he'd never volunteered more information that Harry had asked for. He turned his quill over with his fingers, smudging them with ink. 'You were able to block out Snape with Occlumency,' he said tentatively. 'I had lessons with him, and it wasn't easy.'

'It's easier when you don't have an emotional attachment to the person you're trying to block,' Draco blurted. 'I'm surprised he didn't tell you that, bloody sadist.'

'There's something...'

Draco blew a loud raspberry. 'Oh, hurrah,' he drawled. 'I'm brilliant at something I haven't done in over twenty years.' He looked furtively around the spartan office. 'Do you still dream about the Dark Lord?'

'Voldemort?' The quill dropped from Harry startled fingers. 'Sometimes,' he admitted. 'Not as much as I used to. Couple times a year, if that.'

Draco blinked rapidly, the mental gates slamming shut. 'Then you're lucky,' he said quietly. 'It's been so long, but even now, his hold on people...' He took a deep breath and started to stand, but stayed in the chair. 'He's going to be a better man than me, isn't he?'

'Better than both of us,' Harry said ruefully, not needing to ask who Draco was talking about. He stuffed his paperwork into his bag and grabbed his coat. 'Come on, I'll walk with you to the lifts.'

Draco stood stiffly. 'I'm not a child, Potter,' he grumbled. 'I can find my own way to the lifts.'

Harry shrugged noncommittally. 'I have to leave anyway, and either I, or that rather large MLE bloke standing outside my office will escort you to the lifts and to the visitor's exit. At least if it's me, it's not like you're a common criminal.'

Draco looked as if he was ready to vomit. 'This is no better than being part of his inner circle.'

Harry's lips twitched in amusement. 'Perhaps, but at least we won't kill you.'

xxxxxx

Draco slouched in the armchair, automatically picking up the squishy ball. 'You were wrong,' he told Andrew.

'Was I? In what way?'

Draco rhythmically squeezed the ball between his fingers. 'This is why I hated self-reflection when I was younger,' he began. 'I am rubbish at everything.'

'Draco, nobody is rubbish at everything.'

'I am,' Draco insisted. 'I spent more time making excuses, whinging, or trying to puff myself up than actual studying in school.'

'Is that so, then? Right. Tell me about what N.E.W.T. level subjects you took.'

Draco's jaw clenched momentarily. 'Potions, Transfiguration, Herbology, Defense, Arithmancy, and Charms.'

'Hm. If I recall correctly, at that time, in order to take those subjects at the N.E.W.T. level, one had to earn at least an Exceeds Expectations on the O.W.L.'

'So?'

'And Severus Snape taught Potions at the time, and he didn't allow anyone to take his N.E.W.T. Potions class with anything less than an Outstanding. And neither did Professor Vector.'

'Fat lot of good it did me,' Draco scoffed. 'It wasn't good enough for him.'

'Good enough for who?'

'My father.' Draco tossed the squishy ball up lightly, catching in deftly in his hand. 'The one time he came to see me play Quidditch, we lost. Granted, it was to Potter and his team, and they were quite good,' he admitted grudgingly. 'It was total disaster. The bloody Snitch was right there,' he reminisced. 'He was clearly disappointed. Left immediately after.' He set the ball down on the table. 'All went rather downhill from there.'

'Why did it matter to you so much what your father thought?'

'It's stupid.'

'No, it's not.'

Draco sighed heavily and glared at the ceiling. 'I wanted him to pay attention to me. And not just lecture me about proper behavior or castigate me for my failings.' His eyes closed. 'After the war, he stopped lecturing me. Just told me all the things I'd done wrong, when he talked to me at all. Funny... I was happier when he stopped talking.'

'Why do you think that is? I mean, you spend your entire life, all but gagging for him to notice you, and when he finally just stops talking to or lecturing you, that's what makes you - to use your words - happy.'

'Just one less voice telling me what an utter failure I was. It was almost a relief when he stopped talking to me.'

'Where was your mother in all this?'

'Mother? She was there. I mean, she saw to my education before I went to Hogwarts, but we didn't actually talk about much of anything. I don't remember her making any sorts of decisions about things until my father was imprisoned after my fifth year of school. And after the war, she was the only one of us who wasn't given a stiff penalty for our activities. Father just sort of withdrew into himself after his trial was over. Mother was the one that made the decision for them to move to France about a year after that.

'Although there was the one time before I started school... Father wanted to send me to Durmstrang, but Mother protested. I don't know how she got him to change his mind...'

'Why Durmstrang?'

'Who knows?' Draco said with a shrug. 'Because they used to teach the Dark Arts, perhaps. Maybe he wanted to groom me to take his place one day when...' Draco visibly braced himself. 'Voldemort came back. At the opposite end of the spectrum, maybe he wanted me elsewhere. In case I proved to be an embarrassment to the family and I could easily be kept away from England.'

'What was your parents' marriage like?' Andrew asked curiously.

'Father made decisions and Mother basically did what he said, until everything got turned upside down and Mother had to step in to fill the void. She did quite well, all things considered. Out of the three of us, she's emerged as unscathed as she could possibly be. They had separate bedrooms, but a lot of couples in arranged marriages do,' Draco explained. 'It was a match of obligation. There wasn't much love to be lost between the two of them. And I doubt she ever really respected him. It was odd, after the war to see her asserting herself, doing the things he used to do. It was like she was an entirely different person. Maybe that's who she was all along...'

xxxxxx

Narcissa paid the baker for the baguette and tucked it into the basket swinging from her arm. She turned and meandered through the maze of stalls in the market, pausing here and there to examine vegetables, or freshly-caught fish.

The solitude of her existence didn't bother her as much as she had thought it would. After living more than half her life doing what other people expected her to do, Narcissa had stepped into the role vacated by Lucius' abdication and subsequent affair with the liquor bottle, with an ease that had surprised her. And once Lucius was dead, she reveled in the freedom she then had to do as she pleased, unfettered by the rules and regulations imposed on him by the Ministry. She stopped to inspect an aubergine, lifting it in her hands when a flash of movement caught the corner of her eye. Narcissa whipped around. 'Lavinia?' The aubergine dropped to the cobblestones from her lax fingers. She began to walk toward the woman, at a sedate, "correct" pace at first, then broke into a run. 'Lavinia! Livvy! Wait...' The woman disappeared around a corner, and Narcissa followed her, dodging other shoppers, but she had all but melted into the crowded square.

Her head bowed, Narcissa trudged back to the vegetable stall. The merchant held the bruised aubergine, looking indignant. She reached out and plucked it from his hands, placing it in her basket. 'Je suis désolée. I'm terribly sorry...' She placed a few coins in his hand, gazing uncertainly around the marketplace, teeming with people. 'I'm going mad...' she murmured to herself.

She quickly made her way back to her villa and threw the basket into the kitchen, Vanishing its contents with a careless wave of her wand. Without bothering to ask herself why, Narcissa darted into her bedroom, and threw some clothing into a bag. The next thing she knew, she found herself queuing up in the line at the International Portkey terminal. 'London,' she told the witch behind the counter. The witch handed her a small ticket, and after paying an exorbitant amount of gold for it, Narcissa strode to the end of the corridor.

'Portkey for London! 11:42 Portkey to London!' cried a voice.

She jostled for a place next to a broken umbrella and laid a finger on it, seconds before it began to glow.

xxxxxx

Andromeda ushered Narcissa into the house. 'I didn't know you were coming!' she exclaimed. 'Scorpius said at Christmas you meant to stay in Nice until the summer.'

Narcissa stared at her for a moment, then blurted, 'I think I've gone mad.'

Andromeda burst into peals of laughter, as she hung her sister's cloak on a hook by the door. 'Oh, good Lord, what makes you think that?'

'I'm seeing someone.'

'It's about time you did something good for yourself,' Andromeda said dryly. 'Is he typically French and terribly suave and urbane?' she sighed, batting her eyelashes.

'I don't mean that!' Narcissa huffed, flustered. 'I mean I'm seeing people who aren't there!'

Andromeda beckoned for Narcissa to follow, and led her to the kitchen. 'Are you certain it's not just people Disapparating? You do live in a magical neighborhood...'

'Yes, I'm quite certain it wasn't Apparition. I'm going mad.' Narcissa sat back in her chair and glared at her sister. 'It does run in the family, you know.'

'Oh for Merlin's sake,' Andromeda laughed, flicking her wand at the teapot. 'If you were insane at all, we'd have known long ago.'

'That's not true! Bellatrix wasn't bonkers until after she broke out of prison,' Narcissa pointed out.

'Bellatrix Black Lestrange was a psychopath the moment she was born,' Andromeda corrected. 'When you were three or four, she managed to get her hands on our mother's wand and tried to hex you because you had blonde hair and didn't fit in with the rest of us. Prison just made it more obvious.' She poured each of them a cup of tea and began to sip hers. 'What makes you think you're seeing people?'

Narcissa cradled her cup between her palms. 'Do you remember Lucius' older sister?'

'Vaguely. She was five years or so ahead of me in school, and I didn't exactly mingle with your social circle after I left home.'

'When Draco was about a year old, she just... disappeared.'

'Maybe she did a bunk, like I did.'

Narcissa shook her head. 'I don't think so.'

'Why not? It's not impossible.'

Narcissa eyed Andromeda as she set her cup down. 'She didn't have her wand,' she said simply as if that explained everything. 'Do you really think she'd have been content to live as a Muggle?'

'Stranger things have happened.'

'True... Lucius said I wasn't to ever mention her again. From that point onward, it was like... Lavinia... never existed.'

'What did she do? Fall for a Muggle-born?' Andromeda asked sarcastically.

'No. Worse. She fell for one of the Prewett twins.' Narcissa picked up a spoon and idly stirred sugar into her tea. 'Fabian, to be precise.'

Andromeda frowned slightly. 'When did she leave?'

Narcissa felt vaguely sick. 'She left the same day Gideon and Fabian Prewett were killed.'

Andromeda felt a finger of dread trail down her spine. 'You don't think...?' she whispered, horrified.

Narcissa nodded slowly. 'I do.'

'But wouldn't she have been found?'

'Not if Lucius didn't want her to be found.'

Andromeda bit her lip, then ventured, 'Do you want to try and find out what happened to her?'

Narcissa laughed bitterly. 'And how do you presume to do that?'

'Harry. He can find out if there was any sort of investigation into Lavinia's disappearance.'

'Harry Potter already knows too many of my family's secrets,' Narcissa maintained.

'So what's one more?'

xxxxxx

Draco stood outside Daphne's bedroom door, hand raised, ready to knock. Instead, his hand flattened on the door and his head slowly lowered until his forehead rested against it. 'I don't know any other way,' he said softly. 'I don't know another way to be.'

On the other side of the door, Daphne's eyes narrowed and she slid out of bed, stealing lightly across the floor. She leaned closer to the door, trying to catch the low murmur on the other side.

'I wish I could just start over. Let it all go. I was raised to believe that this was the only way to live. That blood status was the only thing that mattered. That sons were supposed to do as their fathers did. I wasn't able to do that, and my father never forgave me for humiliating the family name. When Scorpius was born, he said it was my chance to make amends. To raise the perfect son. And I couldn't even manage that.

'Bringing a child into this... life... was unthinkable for me. How could I mold my son into what my father wanted, when it wasn't... I didn't want to put him through what I had to live. But I had to try. I had to prove to my father I wasn't a colossal disgrace.

'It didn't work out that way, did it? I wanted him to be better than me, but this isn't what I had in mind. I thought if I let you be more involved with Scorpius when he was younger, he would be that ideal son like my father wanted. You were in Slytherin and pure-blood, just like I was, so of course it would help.

'I knew. I knew when he was small that he wasn't going to conform to what my father - and I - wanted him to be. And I blamed you, because it was easier than thinking that my way wasn't the best course for Scorpius. And when he started school and ended up in Gryffindor, best friends with Potter's son, I was angry. Angry at myself, angry at you, and Scorpius. It took me a long time to stop being so angry. It took months after my father died to realize I didn't have to try and live up to his expectations any longer. And by then, I figured the more I stayed away from Scorpius, the better he was. Why should I risk cocking up his life even more than it already is?'

Draco waited, nearly holding his breath, half-hoping Daphne had heard him, but almost sure she hadn't. After a minute had ticked by, he pushed off the firmly closed door and trudged down the corridor.

Daphne's hand dropped to the doorknob. She carefully opened it, peering through a narrow crack, but the only thing she saw was the hem of Draco's dressing gown as he stumbled into his own bedroom.

xxxxxx

Narcissa stood in the lifts, her hands knotted together nervously. When the doors parted, she took a deep breath, and stepped off, her head held high, looking for all the world as if she was the current Minister of Magic. It made her laugh a little to herself. She supposed it was the one thing she had managed to teach Draco. She'd seen him behave like this often enough after the war. It was how he managed to get through his trial without breaking down publicly. She strode through the maze of cubicles, heading for Harry's office at the end.

The door was partially open, but Narcissa knocked quietly on the dark wood. Harry glanced up from the file on his desk. If he was surprised, it didn't show on his face. 'If you want to see Scorpius, he's at the house with Ginny,' Harry said.

'That's not why I'm here,' Narcissa began. 'I need to locate someone...'

'Erm... That's more of MLE's area of expertise...'

'Not this time,' Narcissa insisted. 'Because it involves Lucius.'

Harry slowly closed the file, and pulled a clean sheet of parchment toward him. 'Go on.'

Narcissa sat in one of the chairs across from Harry's desk, her hands in a death grip on her handbag. 'Lucius had a sister. She's been missing since just before Voldemort tried to kill you.'

Harry sighed and set this quill down. 'Mrs. Malfoy, do you know how many people have never been found from that period?'

'I do.'

'Then you'll know that we may never find out what happened to...?' Harry raised a questioning eyebrow.

'Lavinia. And I know...'

Harry nodded and picked up the quill once more. 'Is this very urgent?'

'I've waited this long, I suppose I can wait a bit longer.'

'It's just I have a case that's wrapping up soon, and I want to oversee this personally. Now, what can you tell me about Lavinia?'

xxxxxx

A/N: "Aubergine" is an eggplant in the US.

For more on Lavinia Malfoy's story, read 'Somewhere'.