Chapter 1: Always the Same

28 Dec.

Draco Malfoy was tired of it. Tired of listening to them fight downstairs; it was the same argument nearly every time.

"Stop babying that boy!" snapped Lucius. "Then stop bullying him!" shouted Narcissa.

"The boy is soft. If he is to be prepared for the destiny that awaits him, he needs to be strong, unbreakable. And you are coddling him right into failure!"

"The boy, you say- that's right, Lucius- he is still a boy! Barely sixteen! I will not allow my son to be forced into a life that he's not ready for. You push him too hard, you always have. And if you keep pushing, keep demanding too much of him, he's going to break!"

"He'll break, but not because of me. It's because you've made him weak! You undermine my authority at every turn. I tell him no, you find a way to say yes. I demand perfection, and you tell him he doesn't have to try that hard. I discipline him, and you clean him up".

"Yes, let's talk about your 'discipline'. ("Oh, here we go again!" growled Lucius) You know how I feel about the way you treat him. Discipline does not involve making him practice spells eight hours a day with no break. It does not mean berating him, or beating him. It does not involve slapping him anytime you don't like what he has to say. It does not involve drawing blood from your own son!"

"I will discipline him the way I see fit until he proves he no longer needs it," Lucius spat. "He is a Malfoy, and he will live up to Malfoy standards. He will be raised high in the service of the Dark Lord, admired and envied by those who did not have the power to achieve what he will achieve. But he must be strong enough to wield that power, and I will make sure he is prepared for it. By any means I feel are necessary", he said coldly.

"Lucius, please! Listen to reason! If you-

Draco tuned them out, blasting the volume on the new Weird Sisters' album. They fight about me like I'm not even here, he thought. Do they honestly think I can't hear them? I'm so sick of coming home to this shite. Merry fucking Christmas.

He fired a well-aimed kick at his mahogany desk, cursing when he hurt his toe. He flopped onto the silk duvet on his bed, lying on his back with one arm bent over his eyes. He was getting a massive headache. Try as he might, he couldn't stop some of the images that invaded his mind- painful memories he wished he could forget.

He was eight years old. He and Blaise Zabini were playing at his home as their mothers sipped tea and gossiped. They were both well aware of the "no ball-playing in the house" rule. But there was nothing to do with it outside except throw it back and forth. Boring. It was much more fun to hide behind the furniture and try to hit each other with it.

The two boys stood in the parlor; it was filled with fascinating possibilities for their battle. Their eight-year old lack of judgment and impulse- control overruled their intention to behave, and soon they were firing the ball at each other as hard as they could. The result of the game was inevitable.

Blaise made a run for it and dived behind the piano; Draco pitched the ball with all his might. His aim was woefully inaccurate. It connected squarely with the antique ceramic vase on the side table and shattered it with a loud crash. Blaise jumped out from behind the piano with a squeal and ran to Draco's side. The two boys stood there, wide-eyed; they stared at the broken remains on the floor, silently wishing that they would blink and the vase would be back on the table in perfect condition.

They stood motionless, listening intently for the sound of grownup footsteps coming their way. When they heard nothing, they quickly began gathering up the evidence and looked for a nearby place to hide it. They were nearly halfway through when the parlor door opened.

"Did I hear a cr-?" came a man's voice. Draco's stomach dropped into his feet and he froze. Why couldn't it have been his mother, a house elf, anyone else in the whole wide world? "Boys," Lucius spoke sternly, "what happened to that vase?"

Blaise stammered; all he could get out were a few "Uh's" and "Um's". Draco made a split-second decision. "Um, Father, we were just walking through here to go outside and I, um, tripped on the rug, and I accidently knocked over the vase. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry Father!" Blaise looked at his friend's face. He'd never seen Draco like this, white as a sheet and trembling. Draco looked absolutely scared to death.

"I see," said his father in an unreadable tone of voice. He began walking around the room, hands behind his back, looking down and around the furniture. He stopped and reached down underneath a chair. When he stood up, he was holding a small ball in his hand. "You…tripped, Draco?" he said coolly, but his eyes shone with barely repressed anger. Blaise felt the tension in the room thicken, and he stared at Draco-he looked like he was either going to cry or to vomit, or maybe both.

"Blaise," Lucius said in a measured tone, "go and join your mother." Blaise backed nervously out of the parlor and took one last look at Draco. His eyes were closed, tears working their way down his face, and he was shaking. Blaise fled the parlor, not fully comprehending what he saw but knowing, nevertheless, that something was very wrong. He hurried to the sitting room at the other side of the manor where his mother and Mrs. Malfoy were talking. They turned as he entered the room.

"What is it, Blaise?" asked his mother.

Narcissa interjected, "I thought you and Draco were playing outside. Is everything all right?"

"W-we broke a v-vase," he stammered. "We played ball in the house." He hung his head.

"Blaise Antonio Zabini! I can't believe this- you apologize to Mrs. Malfoy this instant! Narcissa, I'm so sorry!"

"That's all right, Cecilia," Narcissa waved her hand dismissively. "Boys will be boys, after all. I'm sure you're both very sorry, isn't that right Blaise?"

"Y-yes ma'am, really, really sorry!"

"Where is Draco, Blaise?" asked Narcissa.

Blaise looked at the floor, his stomach in a knot. "He's with his father, in the parlor."

Narcissa's face paled, an expression that did not go unnoticed by Cecilia. Cecilia stood up from the table. "I'm afraid we'll have cut our visit short, Narcissa. Blaise needs to go to his room where he will be grounded for a week!"

"Of course, of course," replied Narcissa distractedly. She saw them out, closed the door and then hurried to the parlor, her heart pounding in her chest.

As she drew near, the sharp sound of slapping and the sobbing of a young boy became clearer. She broke into a run and threw open the parlor doors. Her son was lying flat on his back while Lucius knelt on top of him, gripping his hair and holding his head firmly against the floor. He was slapping the boy's face repeatedly, each blow punctuated by furious words.

"Don't You EVER Lie To Me, Boy!" he shouted, striking his son's right cheek before switching hands and battering the other. Draco was bawling, unable to shield his face from his father's assault.

"Lucius, STOP!" she screamed, trying to pull him off.

He pushed her away. "Don't interfere, Narcissa! He looked me straight in the eye and lied to me! I'm ensuring that he will never do it again. Isn't that RIGHT?" he spat, sending another crushing blow to Draco's scalded cheek.

Draco's breaths were ragged from sobbing and his little voice hiccupped "Please-Daddy-I'm-sorry!" Lucius grabbed him roughly by the shoulders, pulling him to a sitting position and shaking him hard.

"Do you understand me now, Draco? Will you ever be foolish enough to lie to me again?"

"N-n-no," he sputtered.

Lucius continued: "I want to see every piece of that vase picked up, down to the smallest one. When I come to inspect, if there is even one miniscule piece left on the floor I will beat you within an inch of your life. Do I make myself clear?"

Draco nodded his head frantically, tears streaming down his bruised face. At that, Lucius shoved him away and stood up. He looked down at his cowering son.

"I'll return in 15 minutes; you had better be finished." He grabbed a nearly-hysterical Narcissa by the arm as she rushed to Draco's side. "You're not going to help him, Narcissa; I'll be damned if you baby him through this!" He pulled her out of the parlor as she struggled and pleaded with him.

As they rounded the door, Narcissa threw a heartbroken look at her son. "I'm sorry, baby!" she cried, and disappeared from view.

Draco crawled, shaking, over to the broken pieces of the vase. His hands were trembling so badly he could hardly pick them up; tears were blinding him and he struggled to stop crying. His face throbbed, and the sting on his cheeks was burning hot. But he knew he couldn't waste time; he felt sick just thinking about what his father would do to him if he wasn't finished.

He picked up the larger pieces and set them on top of the side table. Then he crawled on his hands and knees, pinching the tinier pieces with his fingers and adding them to the pile. He had no idea if it had been five minutes or fifteen; he worked frantically, praying he would be done in time. He had half a minute to spare when his father returned. He held his breath as Lucius inspected every inch of the floor and exhaled only when Lucius nodded in approval.

"Now, go to the pile of pieces and pick up a handful." Looking quizzically at his father, Draco did as he was told.

"Bring it here."

Draco held out his hand to his father. Lucius gently folded Draco's fingers over his palm so that no piece would fall out. Then he wrapped his hand around his son's.

And squeezed with all his might.

Draco screamed as the sharp edges of the glass sliced through the tender flesh of his hand. As his father's grasp became tighter, blood began to stream from his hand and drip down to the floor. The pain was unbelievable, but his father kept on squeezing as Draco cried out, his knees buckling. His father finally released his grip; Draco painfully opened his bleeding hand and cried harder when he saw the shards of glass now embedded in his skin. He looked up with tortured eyes at his father.

"NO, Daddy, Please NO MORE!" he cried as his legs completely gave way and he sank to the floor.

Lucius released him and looked down at him with scorn. "That was your punishment for breaking my vase with your goddamned ball," he spat. "Now pick up all those pieces again and dispose of them!" he said sharply and strode out the door, leaving Draco to bleed and weep on the floor.

Draco looked down at his hand; the shards of glass stuck out at odd angles and some of the smaller ones were buried almost completely. To move his hand even the slightest caused him excruciating pain. He wept through gritted teeth as he gingerly pulled out the larger pieces and placed them back in the pile on the table. When he had extracted all he could he sat on the floor, crying uncontrollably. How was he going to get the rest of the glass out? His hand was slick with still-oozing blood; his clothes and the floor were spattered with red.

He stood up unsteadily and forced himself to scoop a portion of the glass pile into his hands, the pieces stabbing at his raw, shredded skin. He carefully walked down the long hallway outside the parlor and deposited the glass into the trash chute. He noticed on his way back that he'd left a trail of blood drops on the floor. He managed to move every piece of the vase into the trash before collapsing in the hallway, his cries weak and tired by then.

He watched his father enter the parlor and then walk in his direction. He was too exhausted to defend himself, to cry out if his dad hit him again; he simply sat there, bleeding on his pants. Lucius reached down and pulled him to his feet by the arm. He whimpered at the sharp pain when his hand swung back as he stood up.

"Mimsy!" hollered Lucius, and a mild-mannered house elf appeared. Her eyes widened when she looked at Draco, but she said nothing. "Clean up the boy's hand," Lucius ordered, "but don't heal it. He needs to live with his punishment a while longer." He let go of Draco's arm and strode away.

Mimsy's eyes were filled with tears, large droplets splashing onto her rag dress. "Oh, poor Young Master," she said sadly, "Mimsy knows that the Young Master should not be hurting like this." She gave him a potion to dull the pain and, using tweezers, gently plucked out dozens of tiny glass shards that were buried in his skin. Draco didn't cry out or try to pull away, even though it still hurt. Instead, he just sat there staring almost catatonically, silent tears rolling down his cheeks.

The wounds in his hand continued to crack open and bleed for the next few days. It was painfully difficult to wrap his hand around his fork at mealtimes. Breakfast and dinner were the worst because his father would be home. They ate in silence, save for his whimpers of pain and his mother's stifled sobs.

At lunch, though, his mother would feed him like an infant and order Mimsy to bring her dittany to heal his hands as much as she could without Lucius noticing. She spent every day from the time Lucius left until he returned from work attending to Draco, holding him, reading to him, performing spells to make him smile. He loved her-loved the smell of her jasmine perfume when she held him, loved the way she would stroke his hair, loved that he always felt safe and warm in her arms.

"You're my best Mummy," he said as he gazed at her with adoring, silver-grey eyes.

So it always was with his parents. As his memory faded he realized he had curled up on the bed in a fetal position. Angrily he pushed himself off the bed-he wasn't that little boy anymore. Why then in seven hells he wondered, after all his father had done, did he still try to please him?

Draco was pulled from his reverie by the sound of something breakable hitting the wall downstairs. "Who's throwing things this time?" he muttered to no one in particular. He sighed heavily and pressed his forehead to the cold glass of his windowpane."Fuck this-I'm out of here." He shoved the window open and donned his cloak. Grabbing his new Firebolt he climbed onto the windowsill, kicked off hard, and escaped into the night.