Two lines. It gave away nothing, no details, no emotion but it was enough. I understood. Two lines yet I read them again and again and again as the train hurtled toward home. Two lines as the glorious day outside passed me by as people moved in and moved out of my carriage. Two lines.

I stepped from the train in London with the letter in one hand and a small black Gladstone bag in the other. Two figures came forward to meet me, fortunate, as I had not considered how to get home. It occurred to me then how absurd it was to catch the train. I couldn't Apparate from Hogwarts so I caught the train. I nearly laughed.

Idiot! I berated myself. Why didn't you go to Hogsmeade and Apparate from there? You could have used the Floo Network! No, Draco the moron caught the train! I caught myself then teetering on the edge of hysteria and pulled myself back concentrating on the figures on the platform.

I recognised them at once, Macnair and Avery. Friends and long time associates of my late father. How odd that sounded! I looked them both in the eye. It actually amused me that they now had to look up to meet my gaze, in the last year at school I had put on height and weight; I easily matched my father's physique. I kept my expression impassive, eyes pewter, dead.

Not a word was exchanged but they took me between them, a far more impressive escort than Crabbe and Goyle. Each laid a hand on my shoulder protective, almost. We Disapparated.

~~~~~

She stood on the steps gazing forlornly into the distance. I paused for a moment absorbing her sadness. There was something missing from her, she no longer looked whole.

"Mother" I said, running forward to meet her jumping two steps at a time, an eager child home for the holidays. I stopped on the step below her and reached out to take her hands in mine. I stared deep into her eyes. Only then did she focus. Hers were damp, tinged with red. My own were as dry as my father's heart. She did not speak.

~~~~~

I cannot describe what I felt as I heard what had happened. Pain, surprise, turmoil anger, nothing. I experienced it all in one horrible moment of agony like someone had picked me up by the ankles, shaken me round and waited until each part of my life had fallen out then stuffed them back in with no thought of order or of the future. Mother sat by the window as Macnair recounted the tale, punctuating his words with her bitter sobs. I wished she would be silent though I said nothing.

"It was just a routine attack, one victim, three of us. We didn't know that it was a set up. There was no way we could have known. The whole place was swarming with Aurors, the Ministry have reinstated their power to use Unforgivable curses against us. Lucius was hit with the killing curse from the wand of a man named Troilus. We caught Lucius as he fell, abandoned our strike immediately and Disapparated, we came back here. There was no evidence, nothing to link any of us with it."

"Except a coincidental death." I said flatly. No evidence, nothing to incriminate. I thought back, seeing again the cold glint in Dumbledore's eyes as he gave me leave to come home. He knew exactly what had happened.

Avery handed me Fathers wand. It was heavier than my own, same wood, same core but a very different weapon. I took it in my left hand but I felt no warmth, no affinity for the piece. I laid it on the piano and leaned over picking out a few bass notes with my fingertips.

A dirge.

I slammed my fist down on the keys, Dumbledore had known, they were his people, it was his rebellion, he knew what the Aurors were doing. He had known and he had come to me with false sympathy hoping that a boy in grief would betray his father. My jaw tightened.

The notes I struck hung in the air, discordant, like my thoughts. I waited until the sound had died away then turned to face my mother.

"I'll see him now." I whispered closing my eyes. Like a ghost she rose to her feet. I stepped forward and held the door fro her. She passed by without a word, without a nod. She led the way, just a short walk from the Music room to the Library. Mother stopped, frozen her hand hovering above the twisted door handle. I rested my hands on her shoulders and gently moved her aside looking down into her sad blue eyes. Part of her was gone, it was the light. She simply stood where I had shifted her, no question, no protest.

I stepped into the library and closed the door behind me. I twisted the key. I heard the lock click but that wasn't enough, I took out my wand and bound it closed, doors, walls, windows, every crack … I blocked them all; there could be no witnesses.

I approached my father with trepidation; they had laid him on the long polished table in the centre of the room in line with the window to the East. There he would face the dawn. I repressed a derisive snort, my father had no soul that I knew of, it was lost somewhere along the way.

Never had I been more afraid of him than now. Those times when I had come before him in this very room expecting and deserving punishment were nothing in comparison to this feeling. This time there would be no accusation, no bitter reproach, no hand would threaten to strike me. I swallowed.

With pensive steps I drew nearer. He looked perfect, as ever, not a hair out of place. Not even death could make him paler. His eyes were closed. So still. I reached out my hand and touched his brow. Ice. Tentatively moving my fingers down across his eyelids, his cheek, his lips. We'd never been so intimate in life.

"Father." I muttered. What could I say? I did not love him as such. I feared him and respected him but love? He gave me my blood and taught me my reason for being though I admit his lessons were never easy; always swift and harsh, sometimes brutal. That is why I did not love him but then he never demanded love. I did not hate him either. I never wanted him dead.

What right had they to do this to him, the filthy Muggle loving scum Auror, one who barely had the right to speak our name let alone rip the head from our house and tear the light from my mothers eyes. It was an insult to the name of Malfoy.

An insult to my name.

It stung harder than the loss itself, more than the salty tears that welled in my eyes the simple knowledge of who had committed this outrage. I don't know how long I stood there spilling silent tears and looking down at my own dead face.

But that is when I made my decision. My family had been insulted and that could not go unavenged. I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand. Then took my fathers left hand in mine and slipped the loose sleeve back up over his wrist, over the elbow, the hairs on his arm were so pale almost invisible, like my own. I touched that scar with my finger; it was black and as lifeless as the rest of him. I drew back my hand and twisted the ring from his little finger; it took both hands to remove it. A signet ring styled in platinum and etched with our family seal. With my family seal. It had been worn for generations and was as much a part of my father as his name, his blood or as the dark mark on his arm. It was as much a part of me.

Finally I understood what he had been talking about all these years.

I slipped the ring onto my own finger and smiled.

I would take his place.