How They Fell

Chapter Two


Draco Malfoy had spent the summer doing what he always did, flying, reading and avoiding his father. However, this year, like the last, was somewhat different.

Last summer his father had been locked away in Azkaban and therefore avoiding him was unnecessary. Upon Lucius’ escape in November, however, Draco had begun carefully sidestepping his father once more.

Although, Draco fumed quietly, it was, bizarrely, harder to do now. His father kept on finding new ways to talk to him. Initially it had been the occasional owl, which Draco had been pleased to receive. He had been happy knowing that his father was safe, and still eluding the ministry.

Knowing Lucius Malfoy, Draco wondered how that happy state of affairs had lasted for so long before he started pressuring Draco again.

It had started with that dreadful meeting. Draco winced at the memory.

Draco, had received an owl last Easter ordering him to Apparate to a specific spot in London, in a quiet back street close to the Thames. He had arrived, only to be grabbed from behind, and hexed with a full body bind before being knocked unconscious. Waking later upon someone muttering the counter spell, he had looked up to find himself surrounded by four Death Eaters, one of whom was his father. Most defiantly not what you would want to see upon opening your eyes.

Without an apology he was picked up, briskly dusted off and warned that if he so much as whispered this to anyone he would most strongly regret the consequences. Even the questionable joy of seeing his father alive and sane (or at least as insane as he was before) was not enough to excuse the rudeness of their behaviour, or the intense ache in his muscles due to being held in such a position for so long. “Still,” as Lucius said, “you should consider yourself fortunate that you weren’t hit with something heavier.” And Draco was forced to acknowledge that he was speaking the truth.

Without even a fleeting greeting from his father Draco was inspected; questioned about his grades, his exams, his Quidditch, his girlfriends, as well as his expected future position as head boy and what would happen if he failed to achieve it. Despite his best efforts and working hard all year, his father berated him; the fact that the mudblood Granger still beat him in lessons and that Potter still beat him at Quidditch, clearly meant that he was a disgrace to his pure blood heritage.

All that, Draco had come to expect from the many lectures he had received before. But then his father moved onto a new topic of conversation, one that Draco was far less prepared for. He was informed that despite his weakness and evident lack of effort, he was to be given an opportunity which he, Lucius had been working towards since Draco’s birth. At the end of this year, once he had come of age and achieved his perfect NEWTS, Draco was to be presented to the Dark Lord. And if he was found acceptable he would be allowed to serve their master in his glorious defeat of the mudbloods.

Draco had felt his skin go cold and clammy at what his father was ordering him to do, but had let none of his emotion show on his face. Even now, months later, the thought was enough to make his blood run cold.

“Further more,” continued Lucius, “he would not have a son of his proving to be an embarrassment to the Malfoy name.” He was to study the Dark Arts in the coming year, to be tested in July. “To see what you have accomplished.” Lucius said, standing over his still aching son as he delivered his parting shot. “I expect only the best Draco. Any failure will not be accepted lightly.”

Since then Lucius had sent small notes and messages to his son constantly, informing him of exactly what he was to do next. Some of the portraits started relaying them to him, his mirror as well, there were ‘reminders’ written in the inside of his school books which vanished once he had read them. The statues started shouting things after him as he walked to breakfast, and the door to the broom closet refused to open for eight days until Draco could perform the lesser curses and hexes perfectly. It was somewhat of a relief for Draco to return to Hogwarts for the summer term.

Come July Draco did well in the test. He had worked hard, constantly practicing the dark arts as well as managing to achieve high marks in all of his other exams. He was exhausted from his hard work and looking forward to a well-deserved holiday.

However, his wish did not come true. He had only been given more to do, with another test promised for Christmas.

Over the summer the situation had got ridicules. Draco hardly left his room any more in an attempt to avoid his father’s constant reminders about his duties to the Malfoy name.

This constant nagging was infuriating! Draco found himself longing for his room in Hogwarts were his father couldn’t intrude. For the first time in his life Draco Malfoy had had a miserable summer, and was actually looking forward to returning to that madhouse where he was forced to fraternise with mudbloods and blood traitors.

The whole problem was, that as fascinating as he found the dark arts, he could never forget what he would eventually be expected to use them for. As much as he wanted to please his father, desperately dreaming of him one day telling him that he was proud of his son, Draco knew that he did not want that future.

Before Easter he had both feared and respected his father, he was, to Draco’s eyes the most powerful and most wonderful person in existence. No one could match up to him, and, as hard as Draco tried, neither would he.

It was only after Easter that Draco began to question his adoration of his father. Although it had initially horrified him, after being continually harassed by Lucius for a term he was too angry and frustrated to do otherwise. Draco had begun to wonder how a Malfoy could ever lower himself to the position that his father now found himself in. Not only did he beg and grovel at the feet of the Dark Lord (a position completely unbefitting to anyone bearing the Malfoy name) but for following his cause he had been arrested, imprisoned, barred from his house, forced to exist in the lowest hovel and had dragged the famed name of Malfoy through the dirt of the wizarding world. ‘And if that was not enough,’ raged Draco, ‘he had become the worst harping shrew of the family,’ (no mean feat considering the strident tones of his aunt Bellatrix) yelling after his son morning, noon and night. ‘Well he would not do it!’ He, Draco Malfoy was a proper Malfoy. Unlike his father he did not beg, or grovel, or stick his neck out for anyone. Especially not some warped half-breed with delusions of grandeur!

He didn’t want to join the Dark Lord, he never had, and his disillusion with his father had solidified his opinion.

‘Yet,’ he sighed heavily lying on his bed, ‘nor could he disobey him.’ To do so would mean death or hiding for the rest of his life. He had spent much of his free time in the last few weeks trying to see a way out of this mess. However, as good at plotting and sneaking as Malfoy’s were, he simply could see no other option. And so he continued to study and practice the dark arts, with that flutter of panic ever present within him.