Sins of the Fathers
by
The Morning Starr
Author’s Notes: “The Sorting
of Scorpius Malfoy” should
be read before this. It was written as a
one-shot, but I grew so fond of the little Malfoy
that I just had to write about his first year, and this story builds and relies
on the events in “Sorting.” I hope you
all enjoy reading about the Malfoys as much as I
enjoy writing about them. J
Thanks to Ara Kane, as
always, for being the best Beta Reader a girl could ask for. And many thanks to Anne,
Lizzie and everyone else who asked for more Scorpius,
Al, and Rose. You’ve got ‘em now.
Chapter 1: Fortified
Draco Malfoy stopped dead in his tracks. He’d been about to open the front door of Le Château, but a nagging thought stayed
his hand and he took a cautious step backwards.
A nervous glance over his shoulder revealed that his wife was not
watching him. Sighing with relief, he
took his boots off and placed them next to his wife’s. He knew that if he tracked mud through the
foyer one more time, Lucette would make him clean up
the mess himself. The spells to do it
were simple enough, but Draco found it degrading to perform them when there was
a house-elf around for such things.
Instead, he stood on the front porch in his dark green socks, feeling
both foolish and thankful he’d remembered.
He glanced
once more over the grounds of Le Château. On any other night, he would be waiting for
his son to finish picking whatever plant Lucette had
sent him for. There were so many that had
to be picked in early moonlight that Draco had lost count. Scorpius, with his
eagerness to learn everything about everything, jumped at the chance to
retrieve any plant or potion ingredient, and Draco would wait patiently on the
porch for him so that Scorpius wouldn’t be outside
alone in the dark.
Now Scorpius was at Hogwarts, and Draco didn’t need to wait for
him. He had been out in what he called
his “Potions Shack” much later than usual, to make up
for the time he lost by going into London
to see his son off. Draco and Lucette had planned on lunching in Diagon
Alley afterwards, but seeing so many familiar faces at King’s Cross had made
Draco uneasy, and he suggested they take advantage of the quiet at home
instead. She had agreed, of course, but
whether it was because she was as much of a workaholic as he was or because she
could sense he was uncomfortable, he didn’t know and didn’t care. Either way, he loved her for it.
According
to his watch, it was time for bed, but he was determined to wait for his son’s
owl. Draco had been sorely tempted to
send Scorpius to Beauxbatons,
where he would know the faculty and even some of the students, but Scorpius had wanted so badly to go to Hogwarts like his
father that Draco didn’t have the heart to say no. In truth, however, Draco was worried for
him. The name Malfoy
no longer carried with it fear and respect, but rather scorn and mockery. Because of his own father, the Malfoys spent two years being ridiculed by the Death Eaters
and many more after that being ridiculed by all of wizarding
Britain. Even when Harry Potter had made public the
fact that Draco’s mother had lied to the Dark Lord and saved Potter’s life, Lucius Malfoy’s many misdeeds
overshadowed all of that. His father
went to Azkaban, albeit with a much shorter sentence than any other convicted
Death Eater. Malfoy Manor was then raided by the
Ministry and stripped of almost anything of value, and the Malfoy
fortune dwindled as most of it went to compensate both the Muggle-borns
who had been wrongly imprisoned and to the families of those who had died in
the fight against the Dark Lord. That
was what the wizarding community remembered when they
heard the name Malfoy, and now that Scorpius was at school, Draco could no longer shield him from
the truth.
Hoot. Hoo-oot.
The owl brought Draco back to
the present. Finally his son’s letter
had arrived. But the owl wasn’t Havelock, and the letter,
Draco saw once he’d paid the bird, was not from Scorpius. It was addressed to “Mr. Draco Malfoy, Le Château,”
and on the back it said in capital letters, “HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL.”
This was
unsurprising. He often had potion orders
to cure various maladies that people didn’t want others to know about. It was probably another order for Wolfsbane Potion—the phase of the moon was about right for
brewing. Before he opened the order,
however, the hooting of a second owl stopped him.
Havelock landed
skillfully on Draco’s shoulder, dropping an envelope with Scorpius’
familiar scrawl into his hand. He would
bring Havelock
in to rest for the night and send him back with a reply in the morning.
Lucette’s voice called out from the kitchen when he opened
the front door. “I thought I head an
owl,” she said in what Draco called her “teacher voice” and found so endearing.
“Is it from Scorpius?”
Draco
pocketed the unopened potions order.
“Yes,” he answered, “Havelock
just arrived.” The owl left his shoulder
for a more comfortable resting spot, and Draco made his way to the kitchen. Lucette was already dressed for bed, her long blonde hair
plaited.
She took Scorpius’s letter, opened it, and read aloud,
Dear Father and Maman,
I’ve had the best day. I’m in Slytherin,
just like you, Father, and so is Blair Zabini. I promise I won’t let her get me into
trouble. I also made two friends on the
train. They were sorted into another
House, but hopefully we’ll still be able to spend some time together. My Housemates seem all right. Blair has already asked me to help her in
Potions. I love you both and miss you
already.
Love, Scorpius
PS-Did Father know Harry Potter when
he was at school?
Lucette raised her eyebrows and Draco felt knew his cheeks
were pink. “You never told him?”
Despite his
best efforts to remain poised, he felt himself shrinking under her stare. “It was complicated. I didn’t need my own son thinking Potter was
even more of a hero because he’d defeated the Dark Lord and saved his own father’s life.
Besides, Potter owed me. Mother
did save his life, too, after all.”
Lucette rolled her eyes dramatically. “Fine. I’ll leave you to go on hating him in peace,
then.” She betrayed her amusement by
kissing him quickly on his forehead.
“I wonder
who these two ‘friends on the train’ are,” Draco said as he summoned a glass of
pumpkin juice. “I do hope they’re from
decent families.”
Lucette caught his glass in midair and rounded on him. “Draco Malfoy,
don’t you dare start with that.” She
spoke slowly, danger in every controlled syllable. “If you truly want our son to be unburdened
by the mistakes your parents made, then you simply cannot think that way.”
“I meant
that I hope their families aren’t involved with Dark magic,” he said quietly.
“That’s not
what you meant, and you know it.”
“I
know. I’m sorry. Old habits.”
“Indeed.” She handed Draco his glass of pumpkin juice
and cleaned up the small amount that had spilled. “But you promised me we would raise him
differently, and I expect you to keep that promise.”
She left
Draco in the kitchen. He pushed away his
pumpkin juice; he was no longer in the mood for it. Lucette was right,
of course, but she also wouldn’t be the one who would have to listen to his
father lecture him about his lack of parenting skills if Scorpius’s
new friends turned out to be Muggle-borns.
Muggle-borns, he
thought. She’s even changed the way I talk about them. Lucette had refused
to marry him until he stopped using the term “Mudblood.” Lucius had looked
at him strangely the first time he’d heard this new vocabulary word from Draco,
but despite his father’s disapproval, he had not used the word “Mudblood” in the last fifteen years. At least not aloud, anyway.
Still, it
was one thing to stop with the outright persecution and another thing entirely
to welcome one into the house for supper, wasn’t it? Just because Draco was no longer rooting for
a Basilisk to kill them didn’t mean that he had to approve of his son
befriending them. But Draco had promised, and he knew better than to
break a promise to his wife.
Conjuring a
quill and parchment he wrote,
Dear Scorpius,
We are happy to hear that you
arrived safely. Congratulations on
making Slytherin.
You’ll find it’s the best House by far.
Be sure to tell Blair that if she gets you into trouble, you won’t help
her with Potions.
I did know Harry Potter at
school. He and I were in the same year
and we both played Seeker for our respective House teams. Why do you ask?
Your maman
and I are eager to hear more about your new friends. Give Professor Slughorn
my regards. I am certain he will be
impressed with your aptitude for Potions.
We love and miss you.
Love,
Maman and Father
There, he thought. By saying they were “eager to hear more
about” his new friends, Draco did not reveal even a hint of prejudice. Even his wife would be challenged to find
fault with it. He left the letter on the
counter so that Lucette could send it with Havelock in the
morning. She would no doubt be up at
dawn, as certain plants must be picked before the sun has fully risen.
When he
finally went to bed, the “highly confidential” potion order was the last thing
on his mind.
~*~*~
Scorpius slept in on the first day of classes, and yet he
was still the first in his dormitory to rise.
He was accustomed to waking at dawn with his maman in order to collect dew or
pick certain plants. Sometimes this
schedule would necessitate a mid-afternoon nap, because he also enjoyed picking
the “early moonlight” plants, and that didn’t leave him enough hours to sleep
at night. Perhaps now that he was at
Hogwarts, his sleep schedule would normalize some, but he suspected that he
would probably always be the first one up in the mornings.
He opened
the bed curtain quietly, trying not to wake the other boys. They all seemed all right—not at all like
Zephaniah Smith, anyway—from what he could tell at supper the night before. He’d met Samir Shah
from London, whose father worked for Gringotts;
Zanzibar and Xerxes Baddock, identical twins who
argued about most things; and Dylan Keller, a quiet boy with large teeth. Scorpius would have
liked to talk to them more, but Blair Zabini was busy
chattering away about her family’s holiday in New Zealand.
After
trying to dress without making a sound, Scorpius made
his way to the Great Hall, certain that he would be the first one there. He probably would have been, too, if he
hadn’t made several wrong turns on the way.
By the time he finally got there, a few older students were already
eating and two professors sat at the high table. One had a kind, plump face and the other—if Scorpius wasn’t seeing things—had two small horns sticking
out of his head.
At the Slytherin table were two students, both with blonde
hair. They waved in Scorpius’s
direction, and once he’d realized there was no one behind him and that they
must have meant him, he sat down beside the younger one somewhat
apprehensively.
The boy
beside him offered his hand. “Alexander Lynch,” he said with a mouthful of
sausage. “And this is my sister
Adeline. We’re on the Slytherin House team.”
Scorpius recognized the name. “Lynch, as in Aidan?”
“That’s the
one,” said Adeline. “Quidditch
runs in the family, you might say.”
“There’s six
of us at Hogwarts now, our brother A.J. finished last year and went off to play
for the Cannons,” Alexander explained.
“We’re all
on our House teams too, ‘cept Arielle and Artemesia, of course.
They’re just
first-years. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.” Adeline looked at Scorpius’s
empty plate. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’m not
one for big breakfasts,” Scorpius said. He grabbed a piece of toast to give him
something to do.
“We called
you over here because we recognized your name last night at the Sorting,” said
Alexander.
Scorpius gulped.
Would this be another Zephaniah-like encounter? He wasn’t sure he could take the constant
criticism of his family.
His worries
were needless, however, because Adeline then asked, “Your father played Seeker,
yeah? For Slytherin? Do
you play as well?”
He
nodded. He certainly hadn’t been
expecting this line of questioning.
“You’ve the
build, anyway,” said Adeline. “I’m
Seeker for the team now, but this is my last year, and we could use a reserve,
someone to train up a bit. You’ll have
to try out with the whole team, of course, but if you’re any good, you
shouldn’t have a problem.”
Scorpius was dumbfounded and had a bit of trouble finding
his voice. He opted to nod again instead,
aware of the fact that it did nothing to translate his enthusiasm.
“Great. Well, we’re off to get in a few laps before
classes. We’ll let you know when trials
start.”
They
hustled out of the Great Hall, Scorpius’s gaze never
leaving them. He stared at the entrance
long after they’d gone, trying to sort out whether their conversation had
actually just occurred or whether he was still asleep in his bed,
dreaming. He only snapped out of it when
two more familiar faces showed up in the doorway. His face broke into a smile as Al and Rose
made their way towards him.
“My, you
must have been up early,” said Rose.
“We’re supposed to eat with our Houses, otherwise we’d sit with you, but
seeing as this is the first day and all, we should probably get to know our
Housemates. In fact, there’s Arielle,
she’s in my dormitory, but I didn’t meet her properly last night in all the
excitement. If you’ll excuse me…”
She hurried
over to the Gryffindor table, and Al and Scorpius
exchanged an amused look, each stifling a laugh.
“By
excitement, she means that she went straight to reading last night,” Al
said. “She didn’t know which lesson we’d
have first today, so she went with an old favorite, Hogwarts: A History.”
The Great
Hall was nearly full by now, and the mail had begun swooping in. Scorpius could see Havelock among the crowd
of owls, and soon there was a letter in his hand. Al also had a letter as well as a copy of The Quibbler. Scorpius looked at
Al quizzically, but Al only shrugged.
“My mum got me hooked on it.”
As Al
joined the Gryffindors to eat his breakfast and read
through his mail, Scorpius read his father’s
letter. So he had known Al’s dad at
Hogwarts. They’d both played Seeker
against each other. There was no hint of
a need to avoid anyone in particular (although he’d be sure to ask his father
about the Smiths at some point), so Scorpius sensed
it was all right to tell his parents that Al and Rose were the friends he’d met
on the train. He’d also tell them about
the Lynch family and how they invited him to Quidditch
trials.
“Mr. Malfoy.”
The voice
belonged to an old and very round man.
He looked pleasant enough, although perhaps a bit tired. This was Professor Slughorn,
Scorpius’s Head of House and Deputy Headmaster of
Hogwarts. Professor Slughorn
handed him his timetable and moved on to Samir, who
was now sitting next to him.
Double
Potions would take up the whole morning, along with History of Magic in the
afternoon. He looked up and caught Al’s
eye; he’d just received his timetable from the plump professor who had been at
the high table when Scorpius first arrived. Al mouthed the word, “Potions,” to Scorpius, who nodded rapidly in reply, pointing to his own timetable. So he had Potions with the Gryffindors. He liked
that.
Blair Zabini bounced into the Great Hall with only minutes left
before the first bell would ring. She
collected her timetable, eyed it briefly, and then crammed it into the pocket
of her robes. “Scorpius,”
she said, her bottom lip protruding unnaturally, “please don’t let me fail
Potions. If I do, mum won’t take me to Italy this
summer.”
Scorpius rolled his eyes at her. Sometimes Blair could be ridiculous. He passed along his father’s warning and she
pretended to be hurt by the insinuation that she would ever get Scorpius into trouble.
She scarfed down some bacon just before the
bell rang and then pulled Scorpius by his robes and
practically dragged him out of the Great Hall towards the dungeons.
~*~*~
There were two
cauldrons bubbling at the front of the classroom when they arrived. The Slytherins and Gryffindors filed in, with the Slytherins
making their way towards the front of the classroom, no doubt to try to impress
their Head of House. Scorpius
took a seat next to Al; Blair promptly sat down on his other side. Rose was sitting with Arielle Lynch, who
didn’t seem pleased with this arrangement.
On the
board behind the cauldrons was a list of ingredients for a simple Fortifying
Solution, most commonly used on old broomsticks or cauldrons the owner was
hesitant to throw out.
The liquid in both of the cauldrons was watery and pale yellow, which Scorpius knew meant the porcupine quills had not yet been
added.
Once they’d
all taken their seats, Professor Slughorn waddled
in. He was smiling at them, but moving a
little slowly, and Scorpius found himself wondering
just how old his Head of House was. He
knew that his father had studied with Slughorn during
his last two years at Hogwarts and that he’d continued to study with him
privately after his seventh year, so if he had been a Phoenix, he’d certainly
be closer to burning than to hatching.
“Welcome,
first-years,” said Professor Slughorn. His voice did
not sound quite as tired as he looked. “If you’ll be kind enough to take out your scales and books, then.” The class did as they were told. “Precision is the best friend of a witch or
wizard. Flick your wand in the wrong
direction and instead of setting the table, you’ve jinxed your younger brother. Pronounce a word wrong and set something on
fire. But in no other field is precision
more important than in potion-making.
Allow me to demonstrate.”
As Slughorn took his place next to the two bubbling cauldrons,
all eyes were on him. “In these two
cauldrons is a simple Fortifying Solution.
I have prepared it step by step but have purposely omitted the final
ingredient, porcupine quills. The
formula calls for sixteen quill tips.
Just the tips; they
should be no longer than half an inch each.
Watch what happens when I correctly add the final ingredient.” He picked up an envelope full of pre-cut
quill tips and sprinkled them into the solution. As Scorpius
expected, it went from pale yellow to rich mahogany. Slughorn promptly
removed it from the fire to cool.
“Once it
cools, it can be used to add life to common household objects that appear to be
at the end of theirs. But, what if I
miscount my quills? Or, more likely,
what if I cut the tips too long?” He
sprinkled a second quill-filled envelope into the other cauldron. At first nothing happened, but then the pale
yellow turned to bright yellow and began to rise slowly to the brim of the
cauldron and flow down the sides at an increasingly faster rate until Slughorn waved his wand, causing the cauldron and its
contents to vanish.
“Had any of
you decided to drink a bit of that, by the way, you would have found yourselves
with some inconveniently spiky hair.” A
few girls in the back row giggled. “So
if you’ll turn to page four in your textbook, you’ll find the detailed
instructions on how to make your own Fortifying Solution. Good luck.”
The
classroom was now alive with the sound of pages turning, scales clinking, and
students murmuring while they chopped, scraped, poured, and measured. Scorpius was in his
element. His father had often sent him
to brew this very solution for his maman to use in the greenhouses. She went through an inordinate amount of pots
for planting, so she tried to prolong their use as much as possible, and a
regular clay pot painted with Fortifying Solution was much more economical than
the special resizable pots she’d used at Beauxbatons.
Al was
adding two drops of dittany to his cauldron.
It fizzed slightly, and Scorpius assured him
this was normal when he saw the concerned expression on his friend’s face. Rose was already on the third instruction from
the look of her solution, but now she was distracted by Arielle’s cauldron,
which housed a sulfurous black goop.
“She added
the dittany too soon,” Scorpius whispered to Al, who
was plugging his nose. Blair, despite
her panic about Potions, was also doing just fine.
They
continued to work uneventfully until Timothy O’Roarke melted his cauldron. Slughorn was able
to quickly contain the hazard, but Timothy was to write nine inches about the
importance of precision for homework.
By the end
of the lesson, about half of the class had managed to mess up the solution at
some step or another, and their homework was to identify at which step they
went wrong and explain the effect. Those
whose cauldrons were now filled with the mahogany liquid each took a small vial
to Slughorn, who with a small paintbrush spread the
solution on a wooden plank. He then
placed the planks side by side and stepped away from them.
“Congratulations
to those of you who successfully brewed your Fortifying Solution. You have each earned two points for your
Houses.” This announcement was met with
excited murmurs, as it was the first time any of them had earned points. “Now we shall test the strength of your
solution, and thus how precisely you prepared it.” He jabbed his wand sharply towards the
planks. Many of them exploded outright,
with a few splintering here and there, and one with a severe crack straight
down the middle. Two appeared not to
have been altered at all, and Slughorn held those two
up for the class to inspect.
“Ah, Miss Weasley, excellent. Only two small,
structurally insignificant cracks.
Ten points to Gryffindor.” Rose
beamed. “And Mr. Malfoy. Well,
I must say, I’m impressed. Not a scratch
on it. Your father taught you well, I
see. Twenty points to Slytherin.” Slughorn was smiling brightly, back and forth between Scorpius and Rose.
“I’ll admit, I’m not at all surprised by either
of you. Not surprised at all.” Scorpius suppressed
a smile.
Soon the first
years were packing up to head back to the Great Hall for lunch. Blair and Al were both going on excitedly
about the fact that their planks had merely splintered some. Rose was surprisingly quiet, her cheeks pink
underneath her freckles.
“I’m sure
it’s only because you caught me before I was able to stir it clockwise,” Blair
was saying as they filed into the Great Hall.
“If you hadn’t, my cauldron probably would have melted like O’Roarke’s.”
“It
wouldn’t have,” Scorpius assured her. “But it would have exp…OOF!”
Scorpius was on the floor, his textbook knocked from his
arms and sliding across the hallway. He
looked up to see a lanky Ravenclaw boy on the floor
across from him. He’d obviously just
bowled right into him. The boy looked
older, with thick horn-rimmed glasses and more spots than Rose had freckles. Al reached down and helped Scorpius up while Rose offered her hand to the Ravenclaw.
“I’m
sorry,” Scorpius said, “I should have been watching
where I was going.” He dusted off his
hand and offered it the boy, feeling a bit more confident than usual after a
great Potions lesson. “I’m Scorpius Malfoy.”
The boy
stood on his own, refusing Rose’s help.
He stared at Scorpius a moment and then turned
and scurried out of the Great Hall without a word.
“Don’t mind
him,” Artemesia Lynch said after she and Arielle
dodged the Ravenclaw boy themselves. “He’s in my House. Seventh-year. Not sure about his name. Annabelle says he keeps to himself
mostly. Really bright,
just quiet. Reads
a lot.” She and her sister went
back to their conversation about Quidditch standings
and continued on into the Great Hall.
Scorpius stooped to pick up his textbook, which kept moving
just out of his reach every time he made to grab it. After several unsuccessful attempts to
retrieve it, he realized that Blair was giggling.
“What did
you do to it?” he asked her.
“I jinxed
it.” Her giggles turned into
laughter. “I’m sorry,
Scorp, but I just couldn’t help myself.” She winked at him and then removed the
jinx. “Come on, let’s get some
food.” And she yanked him by his arm and
led him to the Slytherin table, Al and Rose left
giggling in the doorway.
“Do you
honestly think,” Scorpius began as they sat down,
“that I’m going to help you with Potions when you insist on pushing me around
like that?”
“Of
course,” Blair said sweetly, passing him the pumpkin juice. “Admit it, Scorpius, you can’t resist
my girlish charms.”
He rolled
his eyes, causing her to giggle again. If by charms, you mean annoyance, he
thought. But Scorpius
had known Blair long enough to admit that she was right. While he would never describe her as
“charming,” it was his inability to resist her endless bright ideas that often
got him into trouble while Blair always seemed to get away with
everything. He’d just have to be more
vigilant at school.
And he’d
also have to remember to keep an eye on his belongings. He wasn’t going to sit back and let her jinx
his stuff again.
~*~*~
It had been
a long and exciting day, and Scorpius wasn’t sure where
to begin when he started writing to his parents from the privacy of his
four-poster.
Dear Maman and
Father,
Today was incredible! I earned 22 points for Slytherin
in Potions, and Professor Slughorn said he wasn’t at
all surprised. I must be almost as good
as you were, Father. It was just a
simple Fortifying Solution, though. I
helped Blair just a little. She almost
stirred the wrong way, but other than that she did it all on her own.
Also, the Slytherin
Quidditch Captain has invited me to trials. She plays Seeker, but she wants a
reserve. All because she knew that
Father had played. All those drills at
Le Chateau should pay off,
hopefully. I knew you had played Seeker,
Father, but I didn’t realize you’d played opposite Harry Potter. The reason I asked about him is because I’ve
made friends with his son, Albus. He knows loads about Quidditch. His mum played for the Harpies! His cousin, Rose Weasley,
is also very nice, but she talks a lot just like Blair does. Only Rose talks about schoolwork and things
and Blair talks about celebrities, but you know how the Zabinis
are. Rose earned points for her solution
today too, but not as many as me.
History of Magic is as boring as
you’d said it would be, but Rose expects it to be “most enlightening.” I bet she changes her mind after she’s sat
through it, though. I have Herbology first thing tomorrow. I’ll be sure to write and tell you all about
the greenhouses, maman (but I’m certain they’re not
as well-kept as yours).
Lots of Love from Scorpius
PS- What do you know about the
Smiths? It’s probably a common name, but
there’s a boy here who isn’t very nice, and I was wondering if you knew
anything about his family.
Scorpius had purposely left out the details when he said
the Zephaniah wasn’t nice. He didn’t
want his parents to worry, especially since he hadn’t had any run-ins with him
since the one on the train. Perhaps
Zephaniah would forget about Scorpius and concentrate
his meanness elsewhere.
Yawning, he
folded the letter and tucked it under his pillow. He’d send it with Havelock first thing in the morning. For now, he’d get some sleep.
~*~*~
Author’s Notes: Thanks to
everyone who so kindly reviewed “The Sorting of Scorpius
Malfoy.” Each any everyone
of them meant a great deal to me, especially since it’s been years since I’ve
written any fic.
Your encouraging words were invaluable.