Malfoy's Worst Memory

Author's Note - This story takes place in the first term of Draco's third year, so therefore towards the beginning of 'Prisoner of Azkaban', and is based on the book-version of events rather than the film (in terms of when exactly Draco takes his time off). I've placed it in Alternate Universe as the whole thing started as a 'what-if' idea, and so although there's nothing in canon to say this didn't happen, it may be stretching canon a little to believe it did. That odd sentence should make more sense as the story progresses.



Malfoy’s Worst Memory

Part One: Draco

1.

Goyle continued to stare at the overcast sky long even though no one cared any more whether that dark shape had been a wisp of cloud or a Dementor prowling around the Astronomy Tower. Draco thumped him on the arm and scowled at him when he jumped in fright.

‘Are you listening?’

‘Course,’ Goyle replied. He gave the darkening skies one last wary glance and turned around properly to look at the newspaper cutting that the rest of the little group of Slytherins were hunched over. The wind whipped around the quadrangle, sounding like a chant at a quidditch match, and brought a spatter of icy rain with it. Draco, holding his wand in his bandaged arm, pinned the cutting down with a rock so it wouldn’t join the ring of paper scraps dancing around above the grass in the middle of the quadrangle. When it continued to flap in the wind, he let out a deep and irritated sigh.

‘Hold it down, will you?’ he snapped. Both Crabbe and Goyle leaned in and pressed down the corners with their fingertips.

‘You’re not going to get us, are you?’ asked Crabbe.

‘Shut up and hold it flat.’

Draco smirked a little at the thought of bewitching Crabbe’s fingers as an encore to this performance. The end of September brought with it a slight lull in the amount of distractions at Hogwarts, so anything that might get a laugh was good. Dementors still swooped about the towers occasionally but had caused no real alarm since the incident on the Hogwarts Express, and he hadn’t had a proper opportunity to tease Potter about Sirius Black for a while. Despite his father’s efforts, Hagrid was still sitting at the staff table and all that seemed to have come of Draco’s ‘injury’ was that their Care of Magical Creatures lessons became the most boring on the timetable, not to mention the most pungent at times. It all meant that they would need to prod a few people if there was to be any fun at all.

He waved his wand over the photograph and watched as the picture changed from a gaggle of red-headed Weasleys standing by a pyramid to a gaggle of red-headed Weasleys standing beneath a flashing neon sign (which glowed green and orange even though the photograph itself was black and white) reading ‘WINNERS – WORLD’S STINKIEST WIZARD CONTEST’. He wasn’t entirely keen on the wording, but it was the best they’d come up with that morning at breakfast and it probably would get the desired effect. He sniggered at it with Crabbe and Goyle and then tried to work out how to make copies, or how to make it expand to the size of a poster so he could hang it in the Great Hall.

‘There,’ he said. ‘Honestly, the way Weasley’s been flashing this thing about, it’s pathetic. You’d think he’s the only one who’d ever gone on holiday. My father and I went to Egypt when I was six, and he said we might go back there again, but I think I’ll ask to go somewhere else. They’re obviously lowering the standards. Used to be the hotels there wouldn’t allow Wizards to stay unless they knew how to behave in that sort of place. I bet Weasley and his mob went to dinner in woolly jumpers and baggy trousers!’

The crowd laughed appreciatively.

‘Is your dad back yet?’ asked Goyle.

‘Not yet. He and mother decided to stay on for another couple of weeks. Mother wrote and asked if that would be all right. She’s still worried that something would happen to me and she wouldn’t be here, especially with Black on the loose, but Father and I convinced her to go. She’s going to get me a sword from this blacksmith in Sweden, who uses magic iron and carves runes into the blade so that nothing can ever attack you. I think the sword actually flies up and kills people for you or something. Anyway, I’d read about it somewhere and she’s promised she’ll look. I told her she had to stay an extra week if she hadn’t found it yet and that convinced her. Here, put that away just now, we’ll pass it round in Potions.’

‘Did you get any more pictures?’ Crabbe chimed in.

‘Not since the one of the lake monster,’ Draco replied. ‘I expect they’ve been too busy travelling, or else they’ve been stuck with our cousin and haven’t had the chance to send anything.’

In fact, nothing had arrived in over a week and Draco secretly wondered if his parents had forgotten or found something more interesting to do than think of him, stuck at Hogwarts while they visited one of the best Wizards in the family, but he never mentioned it. As far as everyone else was concerned, the trip was something to keep Lucius and Narcissa occupied until their little darling came home. If they didn’t write soon, though, he would send an owl just to ask if everything as all right, and would politely ask why they’d neglected him lately.

The drizzle finally swelled into a full shower of rain and the Slytherins headed inside, not that the cloisters proved any less damp and cold than outdoors and that particular section seethed with students, especially first years, sheltering from the rain. Draco looked out over the black cloaks, a sea of folded umbrellas wandering around, and then shoved his way through.

‘Were we that short?’ asked Goyle. ‘They are short this year, aren’t they? They’re like babies.’

‘Mister Malfoy?’ The voice cut across the cloister and brought the chatter down to a whisper. At the far end, Professor McGonagall loomed over the tiny first years and beckoned Draco to her. Draco sighed.

‘I’ll get you in Defence Against the Dark Arts,’ he muttered to the others, then charged off, warning the other students to get out of his way a few seconds after he’d already pushed them.

‘Just a quick word in my office,’ said McGonagall when Draco finally made it to her side. ‘I’ve told Professor Lupin not to expect you in class on time, so don’t worry.’

‘Thank you, Professor,’ Draco replied, not that he worried what Lupin expected. He only wished he had a photograph of the Professor in his tatty robes, so he could pin it next to the one of the Weasley’s under the heading ‘WORLD’S STINKIEST WIZARD – RUNNER UP.’

‘How’s the arm?’ McGonagall asked as they headed upstairs, not sounding particularly interested, but after the throng of students down by the courtyard, the corridors inside seemed deathly silent, so Draco decided she was trying to fill it.

‘A little better,’ he said. ‘But it still hurts a lot, especially when I move it.’

‘Well, hopefully it’ll get better before your next quidditch match. It would be a pity if you had to miss it.’

‘Yes, I’d hate that.’

Thankfully they reached the office and so the need for smalltalk vanished. McGonagall closed the door before she went over to her desk and sat down. ‘Now, you are not in trouble, Mr Malfoy.’ She almost seemed grudging as she said it, which irked Draco no end. As if he ever caused trouble! ‘Take a seat. I’m afraid to say I’ve had a letter from your father.’

‘Oh,’ said Draco. ‘Is it about what happened in class?’

‘No,’ the Professor replied, and added under her breath, ‘for once. No, it would seem he’s had to cut his holiday short and return to England. I’m afraid it’s your grandfather, Mr Malfoy. According to your father, he passed away the day before yesterday.'

Draco sagged a little, remembering the hunched, wrinkled old man, high crown streaked with wisps of white hair, jabbing at the floor with his stick and calling everyone a ‘Muggle bastard’ if they disagreed with him. He still laughed at the story Grandfather Abraxas told him, how during the Muggles’ war, he and his friends used to send spells towards the houses, anything noisy or that produced a good flash, then they would throw hexes as the Muggles scurried out to bury themselves in their underground shelters.

‘I’m very sorry,’ said McGonagall. ‘Your father’s asked that you be given some time off, and obviously we have no objection. We can have any homework forwarded to you by owl.’

Draco nodded. It surprised him just how strange he felt, not quite sad and not quite angry but somewhere in between. Somehow he couldn’t imagine a summer without a visit to the Cottage, waiting to see if Grandfather would make his mother cry again (which, in the last few years, seemed to have become Abraxas’ favourite sport). Then as he wandered down to the common room to pack some things, it suddenly hit him.

Surely that meant one less birthday and Christmas present?


2.

The Cottage lay about a mile from the larger Malfoy house, on the other side of the village of Avebury, and unlike the mansion, the spells keeping Muggles from noticing the place had waned over the last decade. That much was evident from the piles of leaflets, rolled up plastic bags meant for donations to Muggle charity shops and free local newspapers rotting on the front step and in the bushes that lined the garden path. The house itself was a low brick and timber building with a thick thatched roof, in which several pigeons and owls roosted, and it had once been covered in trailing ivy and briar roses, though only a few yellow, stringy vines remained, making the wall look as though someone had splattered it with spaghetti. Only the garage, off to the left of the main house, seemed in reasonably good condition, since its door had a new coat of paint and the brickwork wore a little less moss and lichen than the rest.

Draco’s father led the way through the ruins of the garden, shooed off some mangy cats gathered for a drink around the slimy ornamental pool with a quick spell that popped above their heads like a firecracker, then he lifted a gargoyle on the doorstep to fetch the key from underneath. Draco glanced about the garden, trying to remember what it looked and smelled like in the bright summer sun, when he used to race around on the lawn, riding a stick like a broom in the days before he was allowed to fly properly. He even spotted one of his old toys moulding in the earth beneath a dead rhododendron bush.

There came a loud screech from the roof above them and something flew down and flapped around Lucius’ head. Draco darted back and watched his father beat at the ragged eagle owl that was trying to claw his face, until finally the bird dropped to the path and hopped off into the bushes. Lucius glowered and shot of a trail of curses into the bush, singing most of the branches, but the owl crawled out on the other side, unscathed, or at least no more scathed than it had been already. Draco laughed then quickly bethought himself when he caught the look in his father’s eyes, but he gave the old owl a nod as they went inside all the same. Grandfather always used to laugh when Lucius wandered in, scratched and dishevelled, and would say the owl was an excellent guardian and perfect judge of character. Good thing his mother had stayed at their cousin’s in Sweden, thought Draco, and he remembered the day she had stayed by the gate and refused to take another step until something was done about the bird, which had watched her warily from the eaves. Somewhere up there, there had to be a nest full of Narcissa’s jewels and hair ornaments, snatched over the years.

Inside, the Cottage still smelled like Grandfather, a mixture of the faintly floral tobacco he often smoked and that odd scent like furniture polish that always lingered around his armchair. The entrance hall, which was long and narrow, leading off towards the back of the house with the staircase straight ahead and open doorways on either side, lay beneath a thick shroud of dust, only scuffed where the owl had hopped around. A wad of Muggle letters lay behind the door, all of which seemed to be advertising Muggle products or offering tiny samples of things, as far as Draco could see. He wondered why the owl didn’t attack the Muggle postmen but knew better than to ask his father. The owl was still near the top of the ‘banned topics of conversation’ list.

‘What are we looking for?’ he asked instead.

‘Just a few things,’ answered Lucius. ‘Wait there and don’t touch anything.’

He disappeared into the living room. Draco glanced in through the door and saw Grandfather’s old chair still by the fire, surrounded by piles of books. A pair of black velvet slippers sat on the rug in front of it as if, in some invisible form, Abraxas was still there, watching them.

The silence grew as thick as the dust on the furniture and Draco paced around the hall, wondering whether to have a quick look upstairs, since Grandfather was no longer around to tell him off if he went near the upper rooms. He knew his father lived there when he was at Hogwarts and always wanted to see the old room, but he got one foot on the stairs before his father called out from the living room and warned him off going up.

‘You know what your grandfather was like,’ Lucius shouted through, ‘it’ll take an age to remove all the curses and I’m in no mood to take you to St Mungo’s to have the extra head removed.’

Draco recoiled from the stairs at once and shivered. Abraxas had books on every sort of magic from every civilisation in the world and told endless stories about the ancient wizards and the disgusting things they found to do to one another. Much though he loved the tales, Draco didn’t fancy starring in a modern retelling. In the end he returned to the front door, which they had left ajar and a chilly draught blew through into the hall, ruffling the piles of newspaper stacked alongside the staircase. Abraxas had copies of the Daily Prophet going back decades, all yellowed and tied together with string. They caught Draco’s eye every so often when one of the photographs moved, but looked so filthy and dust-ridden that he decided not to touch them.

He wandered back outside into the garden and traced his way around the Cottage to the large bushes and trees he used to make dens inside, though most of them were threadbare now. Grandfather had let the place decay so much. As he grew older, he seemed to have another health scare every month, but refused to have a house elf in the place. Draco had never found out the specifics of that, but knew it had something to do with Dobby going to the big house with Lucius. Perhaps Grandfather decided all house elves were traitors the same way he decided that everyone with a differing opinion had to have some hidden Muggle blood in them somewhere, tainting their judgement.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Draco peered through the lead-paned windows and tried to see what his father was doing that would take so long. Much though he loved the Cottage as a child, the smell of rotting vegetation and owl droppings started to make his stomach churn. As he turned, however, he gasped in fright. Down by the gate, an elderly man stood watching the Cottage, cloudy blue eyes trained on the place as though he was trying to enchant it. He wore a grey wool coat buttoned up to his chin and his face seemed to have melted over the collar of it, deep wrinkles running like ravines down his cheeks. On his head was a green flat cap, under which a few tufts of pure white hair stuck out. Muggle clothes, though Draco.

‘This is private property,’ Draco shouted. The old man turned his head slowly and regarded him with a curious look, shifting his false teeth about in his mouth as if trying to fathom exactly what sort of creature had just addressed him.

‘Didn’t you hear me?’ Draco challenged him again, striding forward a few paces. ‘Get lost!’

‘Who would you be then?’ asked the old man. He didn’t shout, but managed to carry his voice over the wind without much effort.

‘None of your business. Clear off!’

The old man nodded towards the house. ‘That your da’ gone in there, then?’

‘What’s it to you? Get off our land or I’ll…’

‘Or you’ll what?’ laughed the old Muggle. ‘I know your sort, laddie. T’ain’t nothing you can do without your ending up behind bars. And I’m an old man, I don’t care if you bewitch me.’

‘Who are you? What do you know about ‘our sort’?’ asked Draco, narrowing his eyes.

‘Heard the old feller’d snuffed it,’ the Muggle went on, sniffing the air. ‘You and your da’ be living ‘ere now?’

‘No.’

‘Suppose not,’ said the Muggle. ‘Suppose you’ve got the big place. Still, nowt wrong with this Cottage, I reckon. Bit of paint, bit of work ‘ere and there, could be nice. Expect your sort could ‘ave it shining again in no time if you wanted to.’

‘Go away,’ Draco shouted. ‘It’s nothing to do with you, all right?’

‘What’s your name then, son? Not Lucius, after your da’?’

Draco threw him a sour look and advanced a few more paces. The idea of a Muggle knowing even the barest details of his family’s life, let alone having the audacity to speak about it made his skin crawl. ‘I’m warning you, if you don’t clear off, I’ll get my father, and he’s not afraid of the Ministry.’

The old Muggle smiled and nodded. ‘No. Reckon he ain’t. You just tell your da’ I said hello.’

‘I’ll do no such thing,’ said Draco, but he relaxed a little as the old man finally sauntered off down the road towards the village. An icy lump formed in Draco’s stomach and he looked again to the Cottage, hoping his father would emerge that instant and take him home. When Lucius finally did appear, with a black suitcase in his hand, Draco practically ran to him and shooed him down the path, but Lucius paused and took great care in locking the door, checked around for the owl and only then started off down the path.

‘What was all the noise about?’ he asked.

‘Just some old Muggle,’ said Draco. ‘Asking about things, watching the place.’

Lucius shook his head. ‘If he hadn’t been so damned stubborn, he could’ve had a house elf looking after things like that. But I suppose we’d better renew the protection spells. If one of them found out he’s dead, the others might come up scavenging. Muggles would steal anything if it isn’t chained down.’

‘This one knew your name,’ Draco told him. ‘He kept saying things as if he knew about Wizards and magic.’

Lucius frowned for a second then seemed to remember something and nodded. ‘I expect that’s the old fool from the garage in the village.’ When Draco looked blankly back at him, Lucius sighed and walked down to the garage beside the house. He opened the door with a twitch of his wand and cast a Lumos charm to light their way inside. The garage held only one object, hidden beneath a grey dustsheet. Lucius gave a nod and Draco lifted the sheet off, and the light from Lucius’ wand suddenly gleamed back at them, reflected in the paintwork of a Rolls Royce Silver Wraith in perfect condition.

‘My father,’ Lucius began, ‘that is your Grandfather, never spent a knut unless it was absolutely necessary in every aspect of his life but one. This. He believed that driving around in one of these set him above even the best Wizarding families. I mean, it originally belonged to my uncle, only I think his wife objected to it or something of that nature and he gave it to your grandfather – he would never have bought it himself, given the expense, but he spent a fortune taking care of it.’ He ran his hand along the bonnet with a delicate, almost reverent touch. ‘I was never allowed near it unless he was there with me. He used to have the seats wiped down after anyone had been in it.’

‘But it’s a Muggle car,’ said Draco.

‘Not quite. He had a few adjustments made, spells to make sure the Muggles never saw it or couldn’t steal it if he ever had to park somewhere, a few other extras. Luckily he had some friends at the Ministry who sorted out the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts department and stopped them sniffing round, though I’m sure Weasley tried to have it impounded a few times.’

Draco snorted. ‘What will you do with it?’

Lucius’ expression hardened slightly and he went back outside. ‘I have no idea. Get rid of it, unless you want it.’

Draco’s eyes widened as he gave the car one last look before following his father out. Somehow the idea of it annoying Weasley, especially given the trouble that family got into last year over their flying car, made it even more appealing.

‘I expect the old Muggle,’ Lucius told him, ‘was the one who helped service the car. Finding a Wizard with the necessary expertise was somewhat difficult, and I think they had some trouble with the obliviate charms eventually dissolving their brains or something of that sort, so your grandfather decided to take on one who could be kept under control instead. I don’t think he liked the idea, but he liked the car more.’

‘I don’t think I’d want Muggles touching it,’ said Draco. ‘Surely a house elf could learn?’

‘Oh, they probably could, but house elves are something of a prickly subject with your grandfather. Or rather they were. We’ll deal with the Muggle later. First let’s get these spells back in place to stop him coming up here again.’

They locked up the garage and Draco sat on the garden wall to watch his father re-enchant the place. He suddenly wondered if his father was sad at all and just hiding it very well or if it didn’t matter to him that Abraxas was dead. Then Draco wondered if it mattered to him. The odd feeling left on the journey home but he worried a little that he should be sad, since after all, a member of one of the greatest wizarding families had just died.

Then, as he watched Lucius fight off the owl once more, Draco happened to glance down the road that sloped off through the trees towards the village. The old Muggle was still there, only a few yards down, leaning against a silver birch and watching them, or rather watching Lucius.

When he realised Draco had seen him, he simply smiled, touched the peak of his cap, and carried on staring as if he had every right in the world. Ministry or not, Draco thought, they would need something more than a memory charm for that old creature.