![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ishafelSummary: Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.
Scorpius is seven and Richard is five when Draco catches them playing at being Death Eaters. It breaks his heart to see them, so solemn in the too-big, hand-me-down school robes, Scorpius with an old plastic Keeper's mask over his face. Marks drawn in ashes on their arms.
The expression on his face is enough to warn them that they are in trouble, though they do not, cannot know their crime. Not yet. And how do you explain genocide to children, to children that you love? How do you tell them that the world is full of monsters, that their mothers and fathers were monsters once? How do you teach them fear, when all their lives you have tried to spare them?
He never meant to have a child, and least of all, to have a son like Scorpius: Scorpius, who has his grandfather's square jaw and silver eyes and quicksilver mind. He never meant to have to say this. When he was fifteen he'd thought he was immortal, and when he was seventeen he'd thought he'd never live to see twenty; when he was twenty he'd made up his mind that the Malfoy name would die with him.
He had never meant to fall in love, and having fallen, had never meant for it to come to anything. And yet somehow here he was, where once his own father had been: a child in his lap, and the truth to tell. He shifts Richard a little, so that he can see Score's face. He cannot look at Richard while he says this.
“There was a war,” he says, “a long time ago. Between the Death Eaters and the English government.” This is the part they know. This is the easy part. Richard's body is warm against his; Scorpius's eyes are trusting and steady. One of them is his son, and the other he thinks of as his, except in moments like this. Except when he remembers Greg at this age.
“The Death Eaters were followers of a man named Voldemort. A bad man, who wanted to live forever and rule the world.” It sounds ludicrous, put this way: like something out of the big, ancient book of fairy tales the boys love. Maybe all of those stories were true once, too. “They did a lot of really bad things--they used all the curses we never use, the ones that hurt people--.”
“Did they like using them, Daddy?” Score interrupts. “Or did they only use them because they had to?”
He is Draco's son, and a miracle in his own right. “Some of them liked it,” he says, reluctantly. “Sometimes they liked it, Score. Sometimes you do things you know are bad, and you have fun doing them, right?”
Scorpius shrugs. Richard giggles. He is cleverer than Greg ever was, Draco has to admit, though it feels disloyal. He rests his chin on Richard's shoulder, and struggles to think what to say. What had his father said? That everyone made choices, and history determined who was right and who was wrong. Draco, whom history had found to be wrong, felt that that might be hypocritical even for a Malfoy.
The cuffs of his shirt are already unbuttoned. He rolls the right one up to bare his forearm. “This is how he marked them,” he says: “This is how they knew one another.” It has not faded. It is as black as the day Voldemort gave it to him, but if sometimes it burns, that is only his imagination.
“We all had different reasons for letting him do it to us,” he says. Richard's small fingers graze its edge. He is curious. Draco was five once. Greg was. “Most of us were just dumb, is all. You know how sometimes you hurt someone, but you don't really mean it. It doesn't make you bad, but they're still hurt, even if you didn't mean it.”
Greg drank himself to death when Richard was three. He had that mark on his arm because Draco did. Draco had it because his father did. If he can stop it from happening again he will. “We hurt a lot of people. We went to prison for it--.” Score gulps. He knows what Azkaban is. He's old enough to understand that, to know that Draco must have done something really wrong to be sent there. “But that didn't make up for it, not really. Nothing can make up for that.”
He does not remember being afraid, when his father talked about this. His father had been younger then than Draco was now. And apparently more sensible. Scorpius looks close to tears. If he starts, Richard will, too. But maybe it's good that they 're terrified. Maybe it's better if their nightmares are of red eyes, black robes, hollow skulls. Maybe it's better if they don't waste their lives trying to right old wrongs. He cannot rewrite the past, but the future is an open book.
“If I catch you pretending to be Death Eaters again,” he says, “I'll beat you both. Don't think I won't.” He's never hit either of them before, but he will, if he has to. And he can see by their expressions that they know it. “Now go and wash your faces.” He will not cry in front of them. His father never cried in front of him. There are some things he doesn't want to change.
Scorpius is seven and Richard is five when Draco catches them playing at being Death Eaters. It breaks his heart to see them, so solemn in the too-big, hand-me-down school robes, Scorpius with an old plastic Keeper's mask over his face. Marks drawn in ashes on their arms.
The expression on his face is enough to warn them that they are in trouble, though they do not, cannot know their crime. Not yet. And how do you explain genocide to children, to children that you love? How do you tell them that the world is full of monsters, that their mothers and fathers were monsters once? How do you teach them fear, when all their lives you have tried to spare them?
He never meant to have a child, and least of all, to have a son like Scorpius: Scorpius, who has his grandfather's square jaw and silver eyes and quicksilver mind. He never meant to have to say this. When he was fifteen he'd thought he was immortal, and when he was seventeen he'd thought he'd never live to see twenty; when he was twenty he'd made up his mind that the Malfoy name would die with him.
He had never meant to fall in love, and having fallen, had never meant for it to come to anything. And yet somehow here he was, where once his own father had been: a child in his lap, and the truth to tell. He shifts Richard a little, so that he can see Score's face. He cannot look at Richard while he says this.
“There was a war,” he says, “a long time ago. Between the Death Eaters and the English government.” This is the part they know. This is the easy part. Richard's body is warm against his; Scorpius's eyes are trusting and steady. One of them is his son, and the other he thinks of as his, except in moments like this. Except when he remembers Greg at this age.
“The Death Eaters were followers of a man named Voldemort. A bad man, who wanted to live forever and rule the world.” It sounds ludicrous, put this way: like something out of the big, ancient book of fairy tales the boys love. Maybe all of those stories were true once, too. “They did a lot of really bad things--they used all the curses we never use, the ones that hurt people--.”
“Did they like using them, Daddy?” Score interrupts. “Or did they only use them because they had to?”
He is Draco's son, and a miracle in his own right. “Some of them liked it,” he says, reluctantly. “Sometimes they liked it, Score. Sometimes you do things you know are bad, and you have fun doing them, right?”
Scorpius shrugs. Richard giggles. He is cleverer than Greg ever was, Draco has to admit, though it feels disloyal. He rests his chin on Richard's shoulder, and struggles to think what to say. What had his father said? That everyone made choices, and history determined who was right and who was wrong. Draco, whom history had found to be wrong, felt that that might be hypocritical even for a Malfoy.
The cuffs of his shirt are already unbuttoned. He rolls the right one up to bare his forearm. “This is how he marked them,” he says: “This is how they knew one another.” It has not faded. It is as black as the day Voldemort gave it to him, but if sometimes it burns, that is only his imagination.
“We all had different reasons for letting him do it to us,” he says. Richard's small fingers graze its edge. He is curious. Draco was five once. Greg was. “Most of us were just dumb, is all. You know how sometimes you hurt someone, but you don't really mean it. It doesn't make you bad, but they're still hurt, even if you didn't mean it.”
Greg drank himself to death when Richard was three. He had that mark on his arm because Draco did. Draco had it because his father did. If he can stop it from happening again he will. “We hurt a lot of people. We went to prison for it--.” Score gulps. He knows what Azkaban is. He's old enough to understand that, to know that Draco must have done something really wrong to be sent there. “But that didn't make up for it, not really. Nothing can make up for that.”
He does not remember being afraid, when his father talked about this. His father had been younger then than Draco was now. And apparently more sensible. Scorpius looks close to tears. If he starts, Richard will, too. But maybe it's good that they 're terrified. Maybe it's better if their nightmares are of red eyes, black robes, hollow skulls. Maybe it's better if they don't waste their lives trying to right old wrongs. He cannot rewrite the past, but the future is an open book.
“If I catch you pretending to be Death Eaters again,” he says, “I'll beat you both. Don't think I won't.” He's never hit either of them before, but he will, if he has to. And he can see by their expressions that they know it. “Now go and wash your faces.” He will not cry in front of them. His father never cried in front of him. There are some things he doesn't want to change.
