I just don't like this one. ^^


It was cold under his fingertips, ivory sculpted so smoothly the cold stone resembled the silken flesh it was meant to emulate. Finely chiseled features turned blankly toward him, expressionless eyes frozen and unseeing as they stared in the direction of the tender touch. It was a mute representation of a silent man, a lesson that not all wizards of darkness escaped punishment for their allegiances. A Malfoy, disgraced yet allowed to live in the form of an artistic masterpiece, to be tortured for his failure. He perched cringing on his pedestal for all eternity.

The punishment was fitting of his family, he supposed. Cruel, but ingenious. Not a man bore the name that didn't hold within him the potential for such spiteful measures of revenge. This one had been the first to cast their family under the Ministry's suspicion - the wizarding world had not forgotten the warning, as the Malfoys hoped... and now they were forced to walk softly where under different circumstances they might have had more freedom to practice their chosen arts.

Reputation was such a delicate thing; built over centuries, but lost within a few moments. Fickle, like the ladies of Fate.

Draco tapped its nose with a mockery of a smile, lifting his fingers as it turned toward him again in question. It said nothing; he had been silenced by the Ministry of Magic, long before his own family had come to take their revenge on him. The ancient patriarch was quite dead, preserved only by the spell that turned him to stone, but he was still aware. His favorite passtime as a child had involved taunting this shadow of a man, poking at it and running circles about the column, trying without sucess to magic parts of its body into the rotting corpse he was told it should have been. Morbid. What an idiot he had been, back then. Age was no excuse for stupidity - that was a lesson he learned early in life.

His second lesson, learned mere moments afterward, had been simple; never, under any circumstances, steal your father's wand. Swift, torturous pain and hours of crying would be sure to follow.

His smile disappeared, fading faster than the sun on a rainy evening, and he leaned back on his heels to regard the sculpture with a critical eye. There was no inscription carved into the pale stone, but there was a portrait in the Great Hall of the manor bearing its very likeness, complete with a plaque and a faithful record of his identity: Draco Malfoy, II. 1860 - 1906, Minister of Magic.

Ah yes... how the glorious fall. Would he suffer the same fate? He was the third to bear that name... an ausipicious number, if one believed the Diviners. But it was his ridiculous luck to be named after a failure. Was it his father's idea of a joke, perhaps? Or had he known already, fifteen years ago, that he would regard his son with the same contempt he did this ancestor?

"One would think you should have better things to do than contemplate stonework, boy." The tone, just on the verge of cool, crept softly over the silence in the courtyard. But the stone gray sky above added its own chill to sharpen the sentiment behind that cultured voice, sending with it a breeze laden with the heavy scent of rain and summer florals. "Perhaps studying would do you better, if your dreams involve a different fate than /that/."

He stiffened a second too late, his feet falling flat on the ground with a dull thump. With no suitable reply on his tongue, Draco simply remained silent and inclined his head to his father, slipping his hands into his pockets and falling into a stance reminiscent of a soldier at attention. It seemed to satisfy Lucius, whose cold eyes gave his son a swift once-over before narrowing and shifting to a darker shade of gray to match the gloom of the sky. Whether he was angry or merely occupied by other unpleasant thoughts was not clear; he simply gestured sharply and turned on his heel to pass thorugh the arch and out to the drive, clearly expecting to be followed, and Draco complied. The statue turned without a sound to follow their receding footsteps, but he dared not look back more than once. His father, it seemed, was fed up with such idle amusements today.

"Get in," were the only other words he heard from the man, as he waited by the door of the family car. Again he complied without a word, understanding from the use of this method of transportation that they were headed to London for some reason or other, and he was expected to behave or face dire punishment. But that wasn't a question... his father was aware of that. Despite his disappointing performance in school, Draco had never been accused of less than perfect conduct.

But that was just it... He'd done nothing to earn the cold shoulder from his father, and that meant some kind of trouble. Would it be the Ministry? Voldemort? Dobby spreading viscious rumors and spilling secrets to his newfound peers?

He had to suppress a smirk at that, unwilling to show cheer when his father was in such a foul mood. As if any sensible creature of magic would take the word of a house elf. The thought was laughable.

Unfortunately, his amusement didn't last long, and the pall of his companion's demeanor soon sank heavily around his shoulders again. Rain began to splatter against the windows, blue thorugh the thickly tinted glass and falling heavily in big, irregular drops that seemed to express what he could not. The idle drum of precipitation soothed and twisted his back into knots all at once, as his curiosity turned in on itself in his mind. His expression must have been as sour as he felt, for when he finally felt his father's eyes flicker back to him again, he received a response in kind.

"Your smirk finally wiped away, is it? I hope the gravity of your situation is finally impressing itself upon you." Lucius was never one for emotion, and it was apparent in his detached tone as he spoke to his only son, cool, perfect... yet uncaring. He obviously had no qualms about letting his criticisms be known. "Have you any excuse for your poor performance?"

Draco eyed him sharply, a retort that would likely get him cursed or worse at the tip of his tongue once again. He managed to swallow it, only just. "Poor performance?" he repeated with a touch of incredulity - as much as he could risk, in his father's current state. /Poor performance/. What, being named a prefect was not enough for him? He was too young to be Head Boy, unless Lucius somehow expected him to get around that requirement by pulling rank or impressing muggle-loving Dumbledore. Gods, he was sure that old man would die before granting any kind of real honor to a Malfoy. And Draco would willingly accept death before taking favors from him - or anyone, for that matter. Yes, he had /some/ family pride left, although it was quickly dwindling.

"Don't be an idiot, Draco." Ah yes, his father's mood was as foul as the weather. Normally rain was welcome, but not when it was accompanied by... this. "I find it hard to believe even you can overlook a humiliation like this."

Draco sighed softly. Yes, that would come up now... The bad would always outshine the good. It was human nature, no less a reality here.


If I 'fixed' Draco's character, this might not be half bad... it's just missing a few of the intricacies that I've picked at, over the time since I wrote this. I had a big plan for this story, and for once, it's all written out and structured until it almost resembles a real story... but then I realized that the core was too shaky - my plan was a little too unrealistic. Draco is my favorite character, but I started writing this story out of a wish to stomp on the fics that I thought were bad - and that's just not a good reason to write. Especially when it didn't turn out very well. ^.^