L'Histoire Noire

Part Three: The Power of Words

So were he a foolish father that would disinherit or destroy his children without a cause, or leave off the careful education of them; And it were an idle head that would in place of physic so poison or phlebotomize the body as might breed a dangerous distemper or destruction therof.

- from "A Speech to the Lords and Commons of the Parliament at White-Hall" by King James I

His father was fond of saying that words had power. Draco didn't understand this - magic was power, money was power, strength was power but not words. Words were nothing.

"Diffindo," said his father, waving his wand at a plush red pillow. The pillow was sliced open, and soft feathers spilled out. His father looked at him expectantly.

"That's different," Draco said. "That's a spell."

"But it's a word," his father said patiently. "The magic needs a conduit which is what wands and the incantations are."

"But it's still not the power," Draco said.

"Gringott's is powerful," his father said, "but all it does is store money."

"I thought you said that they controlled the exchange rates," Draco said. "And--"

"I was simplifying things," snapped his father in a familiar aggrieved tone. "Words tap into something more primal, more ancient and it's important that you know that."

"So I'm not allowed to look at the back shelves in the library because words have power," said Draco skeptically.

"You'll get to it when you're older. It'll give you something to look forward to," his father replied. "Also remember that names have power."

"Like mine?" Draco replied.

"Like yours, like mine, like your mother's," his father confirmed. "A good name can inspire respect and obedience."

***

Draco didn't like trying to read the forbidden, dusty tomes that his father proclaimed were unsuitable for him. They were convoluted and confusing and not worth the risk of trouble, because he didn't understand anything in them.

The books his mother forbade him to read were much simpler. He easily read the large, clear type with avid interest.

Mercy sighed, her delicate frame shivering in the rain. No amount of warming spells were going to aid her, for her heart was icy cold.

"Miss Lovegood," said Julian, his voice more dire than she had ever heard it, even in the face of the raging, terrifying Hippogriff that he had faced down with the bravery of Merlin himself. "Are you quite well?"

"Oh, Jules," she exclaimed, burying her face in the sensuous folds of his cloak. "I was terrified!"

"Those filthy scoundrels won't hurt you while I am here," Julian said, wrapping his hard muscled arms around Mercy's soft form.

"Why are they even allowed here?" Mercy wailed. "I don't understand!"

"Because some have no sense of pride in their heritage," Julian said severely. "Some blood traitors think that their kind should be welcome, no matter how uncouth and barbaric they are."

"Ha! I have miraculously discovered your ingenious hiding spot!" came the booming, animalistic voice of the Mudblood.

"Oh, no!" cried Mercy. "How did such a weak-minded creature find us?"

"That is a good question, love," said Julian. He brandished his wand gallantly and shielded Mercy's body with his own. Mercy whimpered and covered her eyes with laced fingers, peering out to make sure her lover was still uncursed and intact.

"I had help," said the Mudblood. "From HIM!"

A crash of thunder sounded as Chester Willingham Aapparated on scene with a loud CRACK.

"Chester? My oldest, dearest friend?" gasped Mercy, pushing at her raven's wing tresses with her heart all a twitter.

"Yes, Miss Lovegood, Mr. Morcock," said Chester with a mocking grin. "I told the Muggle-born where you were hiding."

"How dare you endanger such a beautiful flower that has only so recently blossomed?" gasped Julian.

"It is a necessary sacrifice, I'm afraid," said Chester. "You see, your standards and morals no longer fit the times. You must change because you are wrong. Marry a Mudblood instead of your handsome Pureblood lover, Mercy. It is the right thing to do."

"No!" gasped Mercy, aghast. "I cannot defile myself with that!" She held a shaking arm out and pointed to the Mudblood, who was drooling and scratching at himself obscenely, like a drunken howler monkey. "You cannot force me!"

"Oh, but we can!" said Chester. "Your pure blood means nothing now. We control the Ministry. We control everything. Submit to us or suffer the consequences!"

"I would sooner perish than betray my ancestors and allow myself to be defiled!" cried Mercy. She held a knife to her heaving bosom.

"No, Mercy! You cannot spill your precious, pure blood!" gasped Julian. He ran towards Mercy, reaching for the knife, forgetting in his distraught state that a summoning spell would work just as well.

"I must, Jules, my love, I must," sobbed Mercy. "I can't stand the shame!"

"I won't allow this to happen," Julian said. "Not to you. Not to anyone!"

Draco sat the book down, wide-eyed. Mudbloods sounded just as vile as his parents had led him to believe. He'd never seen a Mudblood before. His mother shielded him from such things as much as she could, and his father agreed that his son should not be exposed to something as torrid as Mudbloods until he was older. Draco wondered how long he was going to have to wait to see one for himself.

He heard that they allowed them at Hogwarts, but surely they were kept separate from the Pureblooded students. Probably there were special classes for them so that they could learn the bare basics of magic and the menial skills they would need to earn a living being subservient to their betters.

His father often said that the only useful Mudblood was a dead Mudblood, but Draco wasn't sure how useful a corpse really could be. Maybe his father meant that all the Mudbloods should become zombies! Zombies were interesting and cool, and would have to be much more useful than a bunch of incompetent witches and wizards who had been dragged up in the Muggle world by their Muggle parents.

"Draco?" his mother's voice echoed through the library.

He dropped the book and ran around the red leather couch he'd been crouching behind, racing towards his mother.

"Slow down, son," she said, laughing. "Come, there's fresh ice cream in the garden."

Draco followed her, book and thoughts of Mudbloods forgotten.

***

His mother sometimes begins to speak of a name, but halts abruptly, as though she had said a naughty word. Draco knows there are things he isn't allowed to know yet - things found in dark and dusty books, words that stop when he enters a room - but accepts that as a part of being a child. One day, he will learn the secrets that his family keeps, and he will keep them as well. Family is nothing but shared secrets.

This is what Draco Malfoy has learned in his short life. Words are power and family is secrets.

At breakfast, his father casually mentions Bellatrix. Draco has not heard this name before, and listens carefully.

His mother shushes his father, glancing meaningfully at him.

"It's your cousin that shouldn't be mentioned," said his father.

"Regulus was a good man!" his mother replied.

"He was a humiliation!" his father snapped. "He turned away from everything we believed; he turned away from our Lord!"

Then, just like that, his father remembered Draco was in the room, and stopped his tirade. His mother just looked tired, as though she had heard this argument before. He'd heard the name Regulus before, many times. His old Aunt Merope had often compared him to Regulus, saying he looked like him, that his Black blood shone through. His mother spoke of her cousin with such fondness, even Draco could see that she had loved him.

But if he had turned away from the Dark Lord... if he had betrayed his noble blood... then Draco didn't want to be anything like him. He knew that being a blood traitor was the worst thing possible, besides being a Mudblood, of course.

***

One day, Draco slips into the library again. The books seem to call to him, and he is too weak to deny himself their temptation. Knowledge is power, after all, and words are too. His father told him so. He wants to be as smart and powerful as his father, and he knows the books hold the key to achieving that.

The dark tomes along the back wall are only visible to him because of the blood running through his veins. Many of the old families use spells like that, which is why blood traitors, who can see what outsiders cannot, are so dangerous. Blood traitors are reared in the midst of the people they will one day betray, learning the same things as those who remain loyal. Blood traitors have access to knowledge that could destroy a family as the Ministry becomes increasingly unsympathetic to tradition.

Draco has heard his parents talk about the war, and knows that they were the losers. His mother sometimes frets about his father almost going to Azkaban. Draco can't imagine what his life would be like if his father had been sent to Azkaban - even with his mother's warm presence, their home seems empty and much too large when his father isn't around.

Draco peers at the books, unsure which one will teach him all he needs to know. He tugs a particularly tall and thick volume off a lower shelf, and sits in front of it. The title is embossed in the cover, but it is not a different color from the faded leather, and Draco cannot read it. He opens the book with some difficulty, and flips through the pages until a drawing catches his eye. It is a veiled doorway, and is strangely still compared to the colorful drawings in the books Draco has in his room.

The letters inside are easier to read, and haltingly Draco manages to read a few lines. "There are sicknesses that walk in darkness, and there are exterminating angels that fly wrapt up in the curtains of immateriality and an uncommunicating nature; whom we cannot see, but we feel their force and sink under their sword, and from heaven the veil descends that wraps our heads in the fatal sentence."

He flipped through the pages, deeper into the book. Singular words laced with the forbidden fascination glared out at him, seemingly brighter than the duller script connecting them into full thoughts. Blood. Decay. Death. Cruciatus. Avada Ke--

The book is snatched from his hands, and he looks up to see his father looming over him. "What did I say about these books?"

Draco knew from unfortunate experience that when his father's voice was calm and low, he'd done something unforgivably bad. He replied with the truth. "That I'm not to touch them?"

"Go upstairs to your room." His father's tone allowed no argument.

Draco obeyed.

***

When his punishment was over, curiosity again drove Draco to the library, but he was unable to enter. The feel of magic, so easy for him to identify after a lifetime entrenched in his family's home, permeated the door, the wall, the doorway itself. He was denied entrance.

He heard footsteps echoing through the corridor, and looked around for somewhere to hide. He didn't fancy another few weeks without sweets or flying or seeing his friends. A painting covered with a sweeping, floor-length veil was only paces away, and he hurriedly clamored behind the cloying cloth. The portrait itself, an Malfoy ancestor with a disapproving expression, began to lecture him but he shushed it.

"I don't think all this is necessary," his mother was saying.

"Do you want your son to learn the Killing Curse or some other bit of dark magic before he's even old enough to go to school?" his father responded. "You're the one who won't even consider sending him to Durmstrang."

"All Blacks go to Hogwarts. Remember, you might be a Malfoy, but I was born a Black. It's not something you can change, and Draco is one of the last."

"He's a Malfoy, darling. I wish you would get used to the fact that the Blacks will be no more. Your precious cousin is dead, Sirius Black is in Azkaban with your sister, and Andromeda's a blood traitor. Don't burden the child with a disparaged bloodline."

Cold silence.

Draco shuffled his feet a bit, uncomfortable. He'd heard his father insult his mother's cousin Regulus, who seemed to be a sore point. He'd heard his mother tell his father that she was more pure than he. He'd never heard them argue like this. It was personal and cutting, and Draco knew he was the cause of it.

He wasn't used to hearing his parents argue, and it left a sinking, sick feeling in his stomach. He teetered

"A disparaged bloodline?" his mother said. "The Blacks have always been greater than the Malfoys, and you bloody well know it! I know for a fact that not one Malfoy has ever served on the Wizengamot..."

Draco, clutching the veil, toppled forward. He had been fighting a losing battle, trying to balance without leaning back into the portrait, who he knew would yell and give him away, but now, lying on the cool floor of the hallway with both his parents glaring down on him, he rather wished the portrait was causing some sort of distraction.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" his mother snapped, still miffed at his father.

"Exploring?" Draco replied.

"He's not very good at fibbing, is he?" his father asked his mother. She cracked a smile, and said, "I've never figured out where he got that from."

"I was!" Draco insisted.

"So you decided to explore in a hallway you're perfectly familiar with, near the room you just happen to be forbidden from?"

"Forbidden places need exploring too," Draco replied petulantly.

"Come here, darling," his mother said, helping him stand and brushing dust from his clothes. "Why were you hiding from us?"

Draco looked at her as though she had grown another head and said, "Because I'm not supposed to be here."

"Why are you so interested in those books, Draco?" his father asked seriously.

"Because I want to be smart," Draco replied. "I want to be a good Malfoy."

"Darling, you are," his mother smiled. "And you can read those books when you're older. Your father didn't get to read them until he was grown, either, you know."

"Really?" Draco asked, looking up at his father.

"Really," his father confirmed, "though I tried to sneak a look at them when I was a boy, a bit older than you are."

"I'll have the house-elf set up the dining room," his mother said. "I think we should have somebody's favorite."

"Cake?" Draco asked excitedly.

His mother nodded, and Draco skipped down the hall, his parents following behind him.