Wars of Our Fathers

Wars of Our Fathers

The manor where Draco Thomas Malfoy grew up had been in his family for generations. It sat on a hill, towering in an imposing manner, its shadow intimidating people unfortunate to walk up the winding path. The stones had been collected for the remains of the Roman Empire, and the vines climbing up them were spiked with thorns, and possibly laced with poison. Draco didn't know if they were lethal or not, he had never thought it necessary to touch them.

The insides of the house were cold marble, and theoretically the entrance hall should have echoed loudly when the front door creaked open, when footsteps paced across the cold stone, or when the new house-elf shattered tea trays on the floor. However, none of this happened, there were no echoes, everything was stifled by heaving spelling. It was another intimidation technique handed down from Malfoy to Malfoy.

The walls were green and black, and any metal was silver. Most of the furniture was engraved with snakes, the tapestries were dark and glum, and all the books in the library were scribed in the dark language, the language of black magic, the Dark Arts. Just a few more traditions carried on by the Malfoy prosperity.

Draco didn't dislike his house, it was after all where he had spent his childhood, it was his home. The thing Draco was not particularly fond of was the feeling that his house gave. The eerie feeling that every forefather of your house was watching you as you went around otherwise privet activities; using the toilet, staring a vigil into the fire, or talking to yourself. Draco refrained from the last two as often as possible because he always felt as though he was being watched; he felt his personal thoughts didn't need to be shared by his ancestors. He also figured the first couldn't be avoided and demonstrated this daily.

The day before term was to begin was just the same as every other day of his summer, why should the normal routine of the household stop just because Draco was leaving for the next nine months? And it truly was the same routine as every other day of the summer holidays; thus it began with Lucius calling his son into his study after breakfast to 'teach' him the way of his legacy.

When Draco was little he was fascinated by the study, he was never allowed in, it was 'Daddy's office'. At age eleven his curiosity was quenched, his father summoned him. Now, at age seventeen, Draco was beginning to bore with the study. More so than any room in the house it possessed that familiar feeling of being watched. No matter the weather outside there was always roaring fire crackling in the grate, casting sinister shadows off the black walls. There were no windows, and the only other source of light was a small black taper candle Lucius kept on his desk, it flamed feebly as though trying weakly to imitate the giant fire.

When Draco swaggered into the study his father was sitting at his desk, hunched regally over a piece of parchment, his black framed glasses two inches from the paper. "Sir?" Draco prompted him, as he did every morning.

Straightening up Lucius swept out of his chair and swiftly took off his glasses, staring down his nose he examined Draco crucially. If Draco didn't know better, he would have sighed, it was his father's ritual to point out his flaws before executing a lengthy lecture on any number of crude topics. Snapping his long pale fingers Lucius barked, "Straighten up son, don't hunch, don't blink so often it looks like weakness, don't lick your lips in thought like that; it makes you look young, and you should never show an enemy a time when you are in thought."

Correcting himself patiently Draco met his father's fierce gray eyes with his own. "Father," he drawled, "don't let your eyes light up like that, it makes your enemy aware of life after death."

Lucius glared even harder. "Glaring has the same effect," quipped his son. Lucius's face scrunched up furiously, and his eyes positively spit venom.

"Get out!" he screamed, pointing to the study door.

"Yes sir," replied Draco mockingly, but he was used to this, he got thrown out of the study once a week and if he didn't he worried that his father was going soft. As he jogged up the staircase he could just imagine his father pulling out a hand mirror he had stolen from his mother and pulling practice faces in it.

Delighted he couldn't be expected to see his father again, Draco kicked his trunk down the stairs, relishing the way it didn't even bother to thunk on the way down. His mother stopped him before he could walk out the door and pecked him on the cheek, slipping a few extra Galleons in his pocket as she went by. As she walked away she said, almost as an afterthought, "Have a good year dear."

Smiling lovingly at her retreating back, he muttered to himself, "Bint." Moving his trunk out the front door, he pulled it hard behind him and tossed it into the car waiting for him. He got into the car and fell asleep as it drove toward London and the station.

On the other side of the barrier first and second years parted for him, clearing out of his way. A few older students did too, many of whom had experienced his wraith first hand. He wished people wouldn't do that. In his personal opinion blood was about as worthless as fool's gold, but he was smart enough to act like a bigot. Not an honorable act to present, but that was all he had; he had no real personality to call his own.

His money was from his family, his titles and inheritance were just the remnants that his father had not consumed, and all his childish ideals were just what he had been taught by his father as a boy listening to cruel bedtime stories about the real Montague and Capulet.

At the root of all his problems and imperfections was one name-Malfoy. The Malfoy family, feared and hated by most, Malfoy Manor home of the Dark Arts, and there was nothing he could really do to expunge this impression. An impression that was uncannily correct for his father's part and Draco knew that soon it would be for his part too. All Malfoy stood for was wealth, and black magic. Black magic imbued by his spiteful ancestors, rude tricks passed along the family trees, skeletons hanging in multiple wardrobes, and hatreds that were automatically tagged with the Malfoy name.

Dark Arts were all his family knew, that and inbreeding. His father worked tirelessly for one cause, one purpose, one reason. Lucius knew only one lord, and he worshiped him in every fashion, he mangled his skin with his Lord's face, he tarnished his son with his Lord's name, and he melted this into every pore of his only child, just as his father had done to him.

Draco could only fight the battles his father taught him to fight. He could only wield the weapons crafted by the biased blacksmith, and he only had the wars of his fathers.

Draco acknowledged this and then went to find a compartment.