Released (Lucius/Draco) for firebird5
Title: Released
Author: A. Alexander
Challenge: Lucius/Draco - Be sympathetic to Lucius's character, you can show him as immoral or whatnot but portray him as human with a few redeeming qualities. No NC-17. [And don't comment here with an ew!squicky! ;)]
Summary: Lucius is returned from Azkaban in less than perfect condition. It is up to Draco to take care of him.
Rating: Hard-R
Warning: mild incest (depending on how you read it - complicated), mention of violence, torture, and rape.
Words: just less than 3,000
Notes: This was written in one night and edited in one day (though variations on the plotbunny have been biting for some time). Thankfully, it is beta-ed. *doffs hat to
jestana* I wrote this assignment because of a drop-out late in the ficathon.
The fic does not portray the 'good guys' in a very positive light. Part of that is perspective; part of it is recognizing that not everyone who supports a 'good' cause are 'good' themselves.
They dropped him. Draco could hardly believe it. As he stood in the elegant foyer of Malfoy Manor, he watched two Ministry lackeys walk into the manor, one on each side of his father, acting as his escorts, and drop him like a sack of potatoes at Draco's feet. He could not suppress the look of horror and anger than passed across his face. And despite Lucius's wretched, dirty appearance, he expected him to get up and shout out the louts who had transported him from Azkaban in such a rough and ungentlemanly fashion. But he didn't.
Draco regarded the two goons from the prison cautiously as he knelt to make sure his father, or rather the pile of rags and sallow skin that was topped by hanks of blond, unwashed hair, was still alive. He turned him onto his side to see his face. His stomach knotted as he was greeted with open, staring eyes and a slack-jawed expression.
A horrible thought occurred to him. Turning back to the two smirking wizards who were watching him, he asked, "Did he get the Kiss?"
They exchanged glances, but one of them, and Draco just knew that he was with Dumbledore's mob, asked in return, "What? You can't tell?" His partner snickered at the mock-innocent tone the other fellow used.
Draco's stomach knotted. They weren't going to answer him. He would have to discover for himself if... if his father had been reduced to a soulless shell or not. He swallowed hard, trying not to vomit as he brushed his father's long blond hair from his face. He took a moment to steel himself, so that he could speak like a proper Malfoy.
"Get out." Those were the only words he could manage.
"Gladly," said the snickering goon.
Draco watched them go, watched the door close after them, before he turned back to Lucius. He had no idea what to do for him. None at all. His mother had left the manor, run off to stay with some distant kin because of the scandal, leaving her only son to mind the manor and await Lucius's return.
"Dad?" he questioned, giving him a good shake to try and rouse him. A piteous groan was his answer. A lump stuck in Draco's throat, making it impossible to call for him again.
He stroked his father's thin, sallow cheek, feeling prickly blond stubble beneath his fingertips. Because of his bedraggled and filthy state, Draco was too ashamed to call for the house elves. But he knew that he shouldn't leave his father on the hard, stone floor in his condition. Whatever that might be.
Taking his wand from his pocket, Draco cast Mobilicorpus on his father and decided that Lucius's bedroom was probably the best place for him. He could get him cleaned up, perhaps into appropriate robes or pajamas, and then put him to bed. Then he could ... well, Draco hadn't worked that part out yet, but he hoped that he would think of something.
Draco was not allowed, under normal circumstances, in his parents' bedroom, but his mother was gone and he needed somewhere to put his father, and the familiar room seemed like the best place for him. He deposited him on the perfectly made and opulently ornamented bed at the center of the room, being very careful as he did so. Lucius moaned incoherently as his thin, rag-covered body touched the linens. Draco's heart twisted at the sound.
"Dad, it'll be all right. I promise. I'll make it better," he said as he clambered onto the sizable bed.
The words just tumbled out of his mouth as he leaned over Lucius and looked into his unnaturally wide silver eyes. As he looked into the lightless eyes that had so often gazed unflinchingly into his own, always proud and full of self-possession and a keen intellect, a tiny sob escaped his throat.
"Please, oh, Merlin, please, let me be able to fix this," he whispered fervently, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead to his father's for just a moment.
He used that moment to compose himself before beginning to peel the prison rags from his father's body. No one could call these robes. Probably not even Weasley. They were gray, sooty, soiled, and damp, and the garment was torn and rent in dozens of places too, though Draco guessed that Lucius had done much of it himself. Draco stifled another, albeit angrier sob at this as he struggled with the cheap clasps of the robes.
His mind unwittingly dragged up memories from his childhood of his father helping him out of dirty, grass-stained play-clothes. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he remembered Lucius holding him in his lap and tickling him. Those had been good days. happy times for him, for both them. Things had changed so much. He had grown up so fast. His father had changed so much. He dashed the tears away angrily.
Draco wrestled the robes open to find that Lucius had been given nothing to wear underneath. And that he was bruised. And scarred. And that he could see each rib as Lucius took a breath. He closed his eyes again and tried to control what he was feeling. He was a Malfoy; he was supposed to be able to do that. But he couldn't fight back the tide of fury.
"They tortured you, didn't they? Those bastards. I bet you didn't tell them a bloody thing." He gritted the words out through clenched teeth, hating Potter and Dumbledore and those buggers from the Ministry more and more with each word.
Opening his eyes again, he slipped his father's arms out of the sleeves of the robes before pulling them from beneath him and tossing them toward the hearth. He would burn them later. And scatter the ashes. His father would never see those horrid things again. No one would ever know that something so vile had ever touched Lucius Malfoy. He would see to that.
"Got to clean you up," he murmured as the anger and tears subsided enough for him to speak again.
Draco brushed back his father's blond hair, noticing that handfuls had been torn from the scalp and were just beginning to grow back. He considered cutting it, letting it all grow out new and fresh, but he didn't think he could do it. All his life his father's long hair had been a constant. He had had that long blond hair in which to tangle his fingers as a small child. As a teenager, he used the sight of it to help him spot his father in the stand at Quidditch matches.
That afternoon he seized a handful and held it to his face, not caring that his hair was dirty or smelled. Just that it was his. Draco sobbed quietly, drawing another soft moan from Lucius.
"It's going to be all right," he forced himself to say.
When he could manage it, Draco summoned a basin and towel from the bath and filled the marble footbath with warm water. He thought bath salts would have been nice, but his mother had taken all of the girly things from the bath when she had left. There was only a bit of soap left. After summoning that too, not wanting to leave Lucius alone to fetch anything that could simply be brought to him by magic, he held the soap to his nose and sniffed, realizing from the faintly musky odor that it was his father's soap. He knew the scent well.
"At least you'll smell like yourself," said Draco softly.
He had seen his father naked many times, though those occasions never seemed of any particular importance to him. Modesty, at least of that sort, was for Muggles and wizards who didn't know any better, Lucius had told him more than once. A Malfoy should be proud of his body and keep it in a condition worthy of this pride. Even his early forties, Lucius had been just as muscular, trim, and dashing as he had been at twenty. Draco had always admired him for that and hoped to cut such a splendid figure himself once he finished growing. But that was what his father had looked like when he had been taken away.
Twelve months. That's how long it had taken him to disintegrate into skin and bones with hardly a trace of muscle. Draco lathered his skin, preparing to give him a sponge bath, the linens be damned, and felt his ribs, his hollowed stomach, and his jutting hips underneath his soapy hands. Nothing felt like it should have. Everything was hard angles or flabbiness, not sinewy muscle stretched firmly and artfully over bone. Just bone, wasted tissue, and loose skin.
"I'll fix this," Draco swore under his breath. "I'll make you better. I'll have the house elves prepare steaks and venison and everything you want. You'll be strong and healthy again in no time." An errant tear escaped his eye and ran down his cheek as he washed away the grime of Azkaban.
Lucius moved uncomfortably, fretting as Draco washed between his legs, gently pulling back his foreskin and making a hushing noise. He refused to leave him dirty and uncared for. He deserved better. Lucius settled down as Draco made quick work of his more sensitive parts.
After rinsing carefully, and casting a drying charm on both Lucius's sallow skin and the bedclothes, he began washing his legs and then his arms, scrubbing and scouring the dirt from his skin. The sallowness gave way to a pink hue that was just as unnatural, but less frightening. Lucius seemed to be drowsing with half-closed lids by the time Draco had worked his way up to his still-besmirched face. He was glad to see that his eyes were no longer so hollow and staring.
"You're still in there, aren't you?" he questioned, taking great care to wash his face without getting soap in his eyes. When the layer of dirt was gone, he kissed his father's damp, but clean forehead and said, "Of course you are." He had to believe that. He didn't dare doubt it. Not for an instant.
A soft sound like a sigh escaped the lips of the elder Malfoy as Draco stroked his hair, trying to decide how best to clean it too and restore it to its former condition. He settled upon rinsing the basin and washing it with fresh water. Should he need to do so, he would fetch a suitable potion from his own bath later. He hoped, even as he took those precious strands between his fingers, that he would not need to do so, that his father would be well and whole soon enough to do it for himself.
"Now to scrub your back," said Draco after he had summoned another towel with which to blot Lucius's hair dry. It looked better now, though it was still disheveled and uneven. He would do something about that later.
Having his own back scrubbed as a very small child had always been Draco's favorite part of bath time. Lucius would scrub until he felt sleepy and relaxed before taking him out of the magically warmed bath water, wrapping him in a huge, fluffy towel and holding him in his lap. Draco closed his eyes for a moment to remember those uncomplicated days and the kisses his father would plant on his upturned face. He knew then that his father would always love him and protect him.
Draco turned him onto his stomach, rolling Lucius toward him and sloshing some of the water from the basin. He decided that it was better to give the linens up for lost than to cast another drying charm on them. Such a small matter. Especially compared to the half-healed stripes that his father bore. Draco gaped at the marks that criss-crossed his back, afraid to touch the old wounds, or his father, for several minutes. They had whipped him? Whipped a Malfoy? He swallowed hard and fought back the anger and indignation.
"Monsters," he growled, filling the basin again and experiencing a twinge of regret that he couldn't scrub his father's back because of the injuries. He had wanted to do something to make him feel more comfortable, something to help make up for the year in prison. But they had denied him even that. Draco silently cursed Dumbledore's lot as he gingerly washed the old blood and filth from Lucius's back.
Lucius's muscles clenched as he worked his way lower. At first, Draco thought it was a good sign, that he was coming out of it, but as his fingers dipped into the cleft between Lucius's cheeks, he felt something sticky. At first he thought his father had become incontinent, which was embarrassing, not to mention disgusting, but something that could be dealt with in the due course of time. But when he removed his fingers, the tips were coated with a white substance and a bit of pink.
"What on earth...." Draco murmured with a confused frown.
Then a chill ran through his body. He knew what it was and could guess how it got there. He took a deep shuddering breath as he frantically began trying to get it off his fingers and off his father. His hands were shaking and a howl of rage was beginning to work its way from his burning lungs into his throat. More blood. Lucius was shaking too. Draco couldn't make it stop. He pressed the towel to the source of the blood and swallowed back his anguished cry, though it threatened to tear him apart.
"I'll kill them. Every last one of them. I swear, father, I swear," Draco said as he bent over Lucius and wrapped his arms around him. He pressed his face into his hair and let the tears come out, unable to hold them back now. "I'm sorry," he whispered over and over again into the damp blond hair.
At that moment he did not doubt that Lucius had been given the Dementor's Kiss. If their enemies could do this to a pureblooded wizard of an old and respected family, a wizard who gave to charity and worked for the Ministry of Magic, even though he had fortune enough to never need work again, what would have stopped them from taking his soul as well? Draco sobbed brokenly into his father's hair. He pulled the frail body against him and held him as he wept. He hoped that they had had the decency to wait until after the Kiss, that he had not experienced any of the pain or humiliation. But that was too much to ask, wasn't it?
Then the body in his arms moved, shifted just slightly, just enough for Draco to feel it.
"Son?" rasped a voice so hoarse from screaming or from disuse or from some combination thereof that Draco hardly knew it.
His heart skipped a beat as he realized that his father had spoken. He was still in possession of his soul. Lucius moved feebly, too weak to turn toward him, or else too ashamed. He pressed his face to Draco's shoulder. Draco cradled him as sobs ripped through his own body. For a moment he was completely overwhelmed.
"Daddy," was all he could manage between the very un-Malfoy-like sounds. He was torn between feelings of relief and lingering outrage.
Lucius shivered, but Draco quickly summoned a blanket from the wardrobe in the corner and wrapped it around him, never letting go of him. He kissed his father's forehead again and held him tightly as the older man began to cry. He had never seen his father shed tears before.
"We'll get them for this. We'll make them pay," Draco whispered as he stroked his hair and waited for Lucius to stop crying, from him to find himself again.
"Say it again," said Lucius in the same rough voice.
"We'll get them. We'll make them pay," said Draco with even more conviction. And, by Merlin, he meant to see all of that rabble on their knees, begging for forgiveness before he killed them.
"No, Draco..." murmured his father. "Say what you said before."
For a moment he had no idea what his father meant, no idea what he had said that was worthy of repeating. Then it came to him: "Daddy?"
His father's shoulders shook slightly, but he managed to wind his thin arms around Draco, so that he was no longer holding Lucius, so that they were holding each other. Draco holding his much abused father; Lucius clinging to his frightened son. They fit together perfectly.
"I'll take care of you. I promise. Someday when we've ground those Mudbloods into the ground. We'll look back on this..."
"I love you, son," Lucius interrupted sleepily as he rested his head against his son's chest. There were still tears in his voice as he said the words that Draco had so seldom heard in childhood, but had instinctively felt all of his life, even when his father was pushing him to succeed and constantly raising his expectations. He kissed Lucius's hair and smoothed it down.
"I love you too, father," he said, silently vowing to do whatever necessary to see him well and whole again. And at that moment, Draco decided that there would be ample time to plot appropriate revenge later. Revenge would keep and be all the sweeter for it. For now, this was more important.
Author: A. Alexander
Challenge: Lucius/Draco - Be sympathetic to Lucius's character, you can show him as immoral or whatnot but portray him as human with a few redeeming qualities. No NC-17. [And don't comment here with an ew!squicky! ;)]
Summary: Lucius is returned from Azkaban in less than perfect condition. It is up to Draco to take care of him.
Rating: Hard-R
Warning: mild incest (depending on how you read it - complicated), mention of violence, torture, and rape.
Words: just less than 3,000
Notes: This was written in one night and edited in one day (though variations on the plotbunny have been biting for some time). Thankfully, it is beta-ed. *doffs hat to
jestana* I wrote this assignment because of a drop-out late in the ficathon.The fic does not portray the 'good guys' in a very positive light. Part of that is perspective; part of it is recognizing that not everyone who supports a 'good' cause are 'good' themselves.
They dropped him. Draco could hardly believe it. As he stood in the elegant foyer of Malfoy Manor, he watched two Ministry lackeys walk into the manor, one on each side of his father, acting as his escorts, and drop him like a sack of potatoes at Draco's feet. He could not suppress the look of horror and anger than passed across his face. And despite Lucius's wretched, dirty appearance, he expected him to get up and shout out the louts who had transported him from Azkaban in such a rough and ungentlemanly fashion. But he didn't.
Draco regarded the two goons from the prison cautiously as he knelt to make sure his father, or rather the pile of rags and sallow skin that was topped by hanks of blond, unwashed hair, was still alive. He turned him onto his side to see his face. His stomach knotted as he was greeted with open, staring eyes and a slack-jawed expression.
A horrible thought occurred to him. Turning back to the two smirking wizards who were watching him, he asked, "Did he get the Kiss?"
They exchanged glances, but one of them, and Draco just knew that he was with Dumbledore's mob, asked in return, "What? You can't tell?" His partner snickered at the mock-innocent tone the other fellow used.
Draco's stomach knotted. They weren't going to answer him. He would have to discover for himself if... if his father had been reduced to a soulless shell or not. He swallowed hard, trying not to vomit as he brushed his father's long blond hair from his face. He took a moment to steel himself, so that he could speak like a proper Malfoy.
"Get out." Those were the only words he could manage.
"Gladly," said the snickering goon.
Draco watched them go, watched the door close after them, before he turned back to Lucius. He had no idea what to do for him. None at all. His mother had left the manor, run off to stay with some distant kin because of the scandal, leaving her only son to mind the manor and await Lucius's return.
"Dad?" he questioned, giving him a good shake to try and rouse him. A piteous groan was his answer. A lump stuck in Draco's throat, making it impossible to call for him again.
He stroked his father's thin, sallow cheek, feeling prickly blond stubble beneath his fingertips. Because of his bedraggled and filthy state, Draco was too ashamed to call for the house elves. But he knew that he shouldn't leave his father on the hard, stone floor in his condition. Whatever that might be.
Taking his wand from his pocket, Draco cast Mobilicorpus on his father and decided that Lucius's bedroom was probably the best place for him. He could get him cleaned up, perhaps into appropriate robes or pajamas, and then put him to bed. Then he could ... well, Draco hadn't worked that part out yet, but he hoped that he would think of something.
Draco was not allowed, under normal circumstances, in his parents' bedroom, but his mother was gone and he needed somewhere to put his father, and the familiar room seemed like the best place for him. He deposited him on the perfectly made and opulently ornamented bed at the center of the room, being very careful as he did so. Lucius moaned incoherently as his thin, rag-covered body touched the linens. Draco's heart twisted at the sound.
"Dad, it'll be all right. I promise. I'll make it better," he said as he clambered onto the sizable bed.
The words just tumbled out of his mouth as he leaned over Lucius and looked into his unnaturally wide silver eyes. As he looked into the lightless eyes that had so often gazed unflinchingly into his own, always proud and full of self-possession and a keen intellect, a tiny sob escaped his throat.
"Please, oh, Merlin, please, let me be able to fix this," he whispered fervently, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead to his father's for just a moment.
He used that moment to compose himself before beginning to peel the prison rags from his father's body. No one could call these robes. Probably not even Weasley. They were gray, sooty, soiled, and damp, and the garment was torn and rent in dozens of places too, though Draco guessed that Lucius had done much of it himself. Draco stifled another, albeit angrier sob at this as he struggled with the cheap clasps of the robes.
His mind unwittingly dragged up memories from his childhood of his father helping him out of dirty, grass-stained play-clothes. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he remembered Lucius holding him in his lap and tickling him. Those had been good days. happy times for him, for both them. Things had changed so much. He had grown up so fast. His father had changed so much. He dashed the tears away angrily.
Draco wrestled the robes open to find that Lucius had been given nothing to wear underneath. And that he was bruised. And scarred. And that he could see each rib as Lucius took a breath. He closed his eyes again and tried to control what he was feeling. He was a Malfoy; he was supposed to be able to do that. But he couldn't fight back the tide of fury.
"They tortured you, didn't they? Those bastards. I bet you didn't tell them a bloody thing." He gritted the words out through clenched teeth, hating Potter and Dumbledore and those buggers from the Ministry more and more with each word.
Opening his eyes again, he slipped his father's arms out of the sleeves of the robes before pulling them from beneath him and tossing them toward the hearth. He would burn them later. And scatter the ashes. His father would never see those horrid things again. No one would ever know that something so vile had ever touched Lucius Malfoy. He would see to that.
"Got to clean you up," he murmured as the anger and tears subsided enough for him to speak again.
Draco brushed back his father's blond hair, noticing that handfuls had been torn from the scalp and were just beginning to grow back. He considered cutting it, letting it all grow out new and fresh, but he didn't think he could do it. All his life his father's long hair had been a constant. He had had that long blond hair in which to tangle his fingers as a small child. As a teenager, he used the sight of it to help him spot his father in the stand at Quidditch matches.
That afternoon he seized a handful and held it to his face, not caring that his hair was dirty or smelled. Just that it was his. Draco sobbed quietly, drawing another soft moan from Lucius.
"It's going to be all right," he forced himself to say.
When he could manage it, Draco summoned a basin and towel from the bath and filled the marble footbath with warm water. He thought bath salts would have been nice, but his mother had taken all of the girly things from the bath when she had left. There was only a bit of soap left. After summoning that too, not wanting to leave Lucius alone to fetch anything that could simply be brought to him by magic, he held the soap to his nose and sniffed, realizing from the faintly musky odor that it was his father's soap. He knew the scent well.
"At least you'll smell like yourself," said Draco softly.
He had seen his father naked many times, though those occasions never seemed of any particular importance to him. Modesty, at least of that sort, was for Muggles and wizards who didn't know any better, Lucius had told him more than once. A Malfoy should be proud of his body and keep it in a condition worthy of this pride. Even his early forties, Lucius had been just as muscular, trim, and dashing as he had been at twenty. Draco had always admired him for that and hoped to cut such a splendid figure himself once he finished growing. But that was what his father had looked like when he had been taken away.
Twelve months. That's how long it had taken him to disintegrate into skin and bones with hardly a trace of muscle. Draco lathered his skin, preparing to give him a sponge bath, the linens be damned, and felt his ribs, his hollowed stomach, and his jutting hips underneath his soapy hands. Nothing felt like it should have. Everything was hard angles or flabbiness, not sinewy muscle stretched firmly and artfully over bone. Just bone, wasted tissue, and loose skin.
"I'll fix this," Draco swore under his breath. "I'll make you better. I'll have the house elves prepare steaks and venison and everything you want. You'll be strong and healthy again in no time." An errant tear escaped his eye and ran down his cheek as he washed away the grime of Azkaban.
Lucius moved uncomfortably, fretting as Draco washed between his legs, gently pulling back his foreskin and making a hushing noise. He refused to leave him dirty and uncared for. He deserved better. Lucius settled down as Draco made quick work of his more sensitive parts.
After rinsing carefully, and casting a drying charm on both Lucius's sallow skin and the bedclothes, he began washing his legs and then his arms, scrubbing and scouring the dirt from his skin. The sallowness gave way to a pink hue that was just as unnatural, but less frightening. Lucius seemed to be drowsing with half-closed lids by the time Draco had worked his way up to his still-besmirched face. He was glad to see that his eyes were no longer so hollow and staring.
"You're still in there, aren't you?" he questioned, taking great care to wash his face without getting soap in his eyes. When the layer of dirt was gone, he kissed his father's damp, but clean forehead and said, "Of course you are." He had to believe that. He didn't dare doubt it. Not for an instant.
A soft sound like a sigh escaped the lips of the elder Malfoy as Draco stroked his hair, trying to decide how best to clean it too and restore it to its former condition. He settled upon rinsing the basin and washing it with fresh water. Should he need to do so, he would fetch a suitable potion from his own bath later. He hoped, even as he took those precious strands between his fingers, that he would not need to do so, that his father would be well and whole soon enough to do it for himself.
"Now to scrub your back," said Draco after he had summoned another towel with which to blot Lucius's hair dry. It looked better now, though it was still disheveled and uneven. He would do something about that later.
Having his own back scrubbed as a very small child had always been Draco's favorite part of bath time. Lucius would scrub until he felt sleepy and relaxed before taking him out of the magically warmed bath water, wrapping him in a huge, fluffy towel and holding him in his lap. Draco closed his eyes for a moment to remember those uncomplicated days and the kisses his father would plant on his upturned face. He knew then that his father would always love him and protect him.
Draco turned him onto his stomach, rolling Lucius toward him and sloshing some of the water from the basin. He decided that it was better to give the linens up for lost than to cast another drying charm on them. Such a small matter. Especially compared to the half-healed stripes that his father bore. Draco gaped at the marks that criss-crossed his back, afraid to touch the old wounds, or his father, for several minutes. They had whipped him? Whipped a Malfoy? He swallowed hard and fought back the anger and indignation.
"Monsters," he growled, filling the basin again and experiencing a twinge of regret that he couldn't scrub his father's back because of the injuries. He had wanted to do something to make him feel more comfortable, something to help make up for the year in prison. But they had denied him even that. Draco silently cursed Dumbledore's lot as he gingerly washed the old blood and filth from Lucius's back.
Lucius's muscles clenched as he worked his way lower. At first, Draco thought it was a good sign, that he was coming out of it, but as his fingers dipped into the cleft between Lucius's cheeks, he felt something sticky. At first he thought his father had become incontinent, which was embarrassing, not to mention disgusting, but something that could be dealt with in the due course of time. But when he removed his fingers, the tips were coated with a white substance and a bit of pink.
"What on earth...." Draco murmured with a confused frown.
Then a chill ran through his body. He knew what it was and could guess how it got there. He took a deep shuddering breath as he frantically began trying to get it off his fingers and off his father. His hands were shaking and a howl of rage was beginning to work its way from his burning lungs into his throat. More blood. Lucius was shaking too. Draco couldn't make it stop. He pressed the towel to the source of the blood and swallowed back his anguished cry, though it threatened to tear him apart.
"I'll kill them. Every last one of them. I swear, father, I swear," Draco said as he bent over Lucius and wrapped his arms around him. He pressed his face into his hair and let the tears come out, unable to hold them back now. "I'm sorry," he whispered over and over again into the damp blond hair.
At that moment he did not doubt that Lucius had been given the Dementor's Kiss. If their enemies could do this to a pureblooded wizard of an old and respected family, a wizard who gave to charity and worked for the Ministry of Magic, even though he had fortune enough to never need work again, what would have stopped them from taking his soul as well? Draco sobbed brokenly into his father's hair. He pulled the frail body against him and held him as he wept. He hoped that they had had the decency to wait until after the Kiss, that he had not experienced any of the pain or humiliation. But that was too much to ask, wasn't it?
Then the body in his arms moved, shifted just slightly, just enough for Draco to feel it.
"Son?" rasped a voice so hoarse from screaming or from disuse or from some combination thereof that Draco hardly knew it.
His heart skipped a beat as he realized that his father had spoken. He was still in possession of his soul. Lucius moved feebly, too weak to turn toward him, or else too ashamed. He pressed his face to Draco's shoulder. Draco cradled him as sobs ripped through his own body. For a moment he was completely overwhelmed.
"Daddy," was all he could manage between the very un-Malfoy-like sounds. He was torn between feelings of relief and lingering outrage.
Lucius shivered, but Draco quickly summoned a blanket from the wardrobe in the corner and wrapped it around him, never letting go of him. He kissed his father's forehead again and held him tightly as the older man began to cry. He had never seen his father shed tears before.
"We'll get them for this. We'll make them pay," Draco whispered as he stroked his hair and waited for Lucius to stop crying, from him to find himself again.
"Say it again," said Lucius in the same rough voice.
"We'll get them. We'll make them pay," said Draco with even more conviction. And, by Merlin, he meant to see all of that rabble on their knees, begging for forgiveness before he killed them.
"No, Draco..." murmured his father. "Say what you said before."
For a moment he had no idea what his father meant, no idea what he had said that was worthy of repeating. Then it came to him: "Daddy?"
His father's shoulders shook slightly, but he managed to wind his thin arms around Draco, so that he was no longer holding Lucius, so that they were holding each other. Draco holding his much abused father; Lucius clinging to his frightened son. They fit together perfectly.
"I'll take care of you. I promise. Someday when we've ground those Mudbloods into the ground. We'll look back on this..."
"I love you, son," Lucius interrupted sleepily as he rested his head against his son's chest. There were still tears in his voice as he said the words that Draco had so seldom heard in childhood, but had instinctively felt all of his life, even when his father was pushing him to succeed and constantly raising his expectations. He kissed Lucius's hair and smoothed it down.
"I love you too, father," he said, silently vowing to do whatever necessary to see him well and whole again. And at that moment, Draco decided that there would be ample time to plot appropriate revenge later. Revenge would keep and be all the sweeter for it. For now, this was more important.