章節 45: Personal
Draco was finally able to return to his own house. As long as the Death Eaters had been on the loose again, he hadn't felt it safe to stay anywhere that was connected to him. But he hadn't wanted to stay in the Ministers house when Rose wasn't there, so he had taken Potter up on his offer on a temporary shelter house. Now that all the Death Eaters were captured again, he deemed it safe to return home.
But as he came up to the house, he saw that the lights were on and there was someone inside. What was this? He approached the house more cautiously. It didn't sound like they were trying to hide their presence. Why were there people in his house when he was not at home?
He peered through the open door and saw a most welcome sight. Scorpius stood in the living room, with Albus right next to him. Draco relaxed at once and entered with a smile on his face. When Scorpius saw Draco, he gave him a huge smile, then ran over and gave him a hug. Draco was completely taken aback by this but returned the hug gratefully. He was not normally a hugger, but this was a clear exception.
"Scorpius! What are you doing here? It is wonderful to see you, son." Scorpius didn't say anything, he simply held on tight. Draco thought idly that he had learned this trait from Rose, it was very much like the way she gave people hugs when she hadn't seen them in a while.
"Scorpius was released from the hospital earlier today." Albus explained. "I knew that you would be back today as well, so I wanted to surprise you."
Father and son held on to each other for a few moments longer.
"It is good to see you again son," Draco said again. He almost felt tears pressing on. "I was worried for a while. I'm sorry about last time, I should have realised what the sight of me might trigger."
"You're not the one who should say sorry," Scorpius protested. "Rather, I should be sorry for jumping at you, or whatever it was I did. I have to admit, I don't even remember."
"Don't worry about that." Draco said. "The most important thing is that you are well."
"Yes, I am well, and almost all my memory have recovered. Seeing you was almost like a final test. There is only one person that I want to see more than you right now, but no one seems to want to tell me where she is. Please, dad, do you know? Where is Rose?"
Draco looked over at Albus. Why hadn't he told Scorpius where Rose was?
"I want to tell you, Scorpius, but Aunt Hermione made me swear." Albus said. "It's complicated."
"Complicated?" Draco asked. "Is there something I don't know?"
"Yes. I'd love to fill you both in, but I'm not allowed to. It's a delicate situation."
Just then, a Ministry owl appeared. It carried a request for a fire meeting. With one look at Albus, who seemed relieved at this, Draco accepted.
Only 10 minutes later, Harry Potter's head popped up in his fireplace.
"Hello Draco," he said. "Welcome home." Then he looked around and saw Scorpius. He gave a big smile. "Scorpius! I hadn't heard that you were out of the hospital. That is great news."
"I was only released this morning. But now, no one seems to want to tell me where Rose is. Albus said Hermione made him swear not to say. Please, tell me, where is my wife?"
Harry seemed to hesitate for just a moment. "That's what I am here to discuss actually" he said eventually. "I need your help to solve a bit of a puzzle."
"I take it, from your evasive answer, that Rose is no longer in Azkaban?" Draco asked as he sat down to be at the same level as the fireplace. Scorpius jumped. "Azkaban? What was she doing there? She hasn't done anything wrong!"
Harry quickly explained the situation. Both Draco and Scorpius were shocked. "Let me get this straight." Draco said once he was finished explaining. "Rose has been arrested in Norway and they believe she is the Death Eaters' leader?"
"Yes. And I really don't understand it. Our story and hers match the facts well, better than what he claims Lestrange has said. It is almost like it is personal. But Rose has never been to Norway before, nor has Lagasete been to England, as far as I know."
Draco felt a chill run down his spine. "Did you say Lagasete?"
"Yes, that is the name of the chief investigator here. Why, do you know him?"
"Not personally, no. Not him specifically anyway. But our families have interacted, with horrible results."
"Please, explain." Harry asked.
"It is not directly our family, but another branch of the Malfoy tree. They emigrated to Norway several generations ago. We only heard news of them during our last war. They wanted to be taken into the Dark Lords circle and tried to win him over with a series of horrendous acts. Among them a train wreck that killed a lot of Muggles. But one of the worst things they did was the murder of the Lagasete family. They were even then a major influential family in Norway, high up in the government and they worked tirelessly on better conditions for Muggleborns etc. Well, as you can imagine, the Malfoy's were leading the opposition to this. So, when they first got started with the Dark Wizard show-off, they murdered almost all the Lagasete family members they could find. Many of them were children. It was a horrendous act. I believe your Lagasete must be one of the few remaining members of that family."
Harry looked stunned. "What happened to those Malfoys?" he asked.
"Nothing. That is the problem. The Dark Lord obviously loved it and offered them shelter when they fled from justice in Norway. I don't know all the details, it happened in our 7th year at Hogwarts, and I was rather preoccupied, but they never made it to Britain. The Lagasete family never believed this and has maintained for years that we have been hiding them from justice. Personally, I think they drowned on the way over. But it may be that they heard of our family's failures and decided they didn't want to be too close to the Dark Lord after all. Either way, Lagasete has every reason to hate anyone with the name of Malfoy."
"This is even worse than I thought." Harry said. "I had hoped that I would be able to make Lagasete understand that Rose isn't part of this, other than as a victim. But he's made it personal. He only sees a Malfoy and is blind to everything else. She could end up bearing the blame for what other people have done."
"This is what happens when we have the last name of Malfoy. Almost everyone associates us with Dark Magic. It is not without cause, naturally." Draco said with sadness. "I suggested that Rose could keep her own name, but she wouldn't hear of it. I was honoured that she had no problem becoming a Malfoy, but I wonder if she truly understood what it meant."
"Well, I think we are all about to learn it now. I'm sorry Draco. I don't think I fully understood it either, until now. Well, at least now I know what the problem is. I will have the Ministry search through the records of that time and see if the Thicknesse government ever recorded anything about those Norwegian Malfoys. It may help alleviate the situation somewhat if we can tell Lagasete with certainty what happened to those that hurt his family."
"That would certainly help. It is one of the more recent wounds on the Malfoy saga and I would like to know for certain that they haven't escaped to some remote island and are still living free. When I heard about them, I was horrified. I tried to pretend I was tough, but I could never even have considered being part of anything like that."
Harry had no reply to that. "I have to go; I haven't told anyone here about this conversation. I'll contact the Ministry and see what we can find."
"Please, keep us informed." Draco said. "Rose is part of my family too and I'm sorry that she has been dragged into our drama."
"When you see Rose, please tell her that I love her, and are looking forward to seeing her again," Scorpius said. He had been very quiet during all of this. It was too much. Could there never be an end to it?
"I'll tell her." Harry said with a small smile towards Scorpius. "But she already knows that. She'll be pleased to hear that you are out of the hospital though. I'll let you know how it goes." And with that, Harry was gone.
Draco sighed deeply and got up from the floor. Scorpius fell down on a chair. Any joy they had felt had evaporated.
"What are we going to do? Harry may think that this can be fixed, but he doesn't really understand. How can he? Lagasete is not going to give up easily." Scorpius said.
"Harry understands how Lagasete feels. The Dark Lord murdered his family too. But he has never faced the problem of a family vendetta like this."
Albus nodded.
"I don't think I really understood it before now either." Albus said. "What baggage you carry. From the way you said it Draco, I take it this is not the worst thing that the Malfoy family have done?"
"I wish I could say that it is, but no. I can say though, it is among the worst things that have been done in more recent times. I am glad that I never got to meet them. Though it may have solved some issues if they had been here in Britain when the Dark Lord fell and they had been arrested, or better, killed."
Scorpius sighed. "What are we going to do?" he asked again. "We can't just leave her there?"
"What can we do?" Albus said. "It's not like we can go there and break her out of prison."
Scorpius looked up at this idea.
"No," Albus said.
"Why not?"
"She would never go along with it. Rose has grown up being told that following the law is important. She's the daughter of the Minister! She wouldn't want us jeopardising her mother's position. You know that. She would never try to escape from prison."
"Wouldn't she? If she was told this story? She has no more desire to spend the rest of her life in a diplomatic relations nightmare than anyone else."
"We would never be able to return home. We can't put our family in that position."
"I don't care. I can't leave Rose there on her own."
"You know, I'm usually the one with the crazy ideas. You're supposed to be the one trying to talk me out of it." Albus commented.
"Well, you've clearly rubbed off on me. I'm going to try. Would you help me? I understand if you don't want to. As you said, you place your family in a difficult position."
Albus hesitated. But he knew that if Scorpius were really set on doing this, he only had one option. "I'll come. But we need a solid plan. Not the least, we need to plan ahead on where we can go. We can't come here, and we need to make sure that they know that we have not returned here."
Draco interrupted their discussion. "Boys, are you sure that you understand what you are doing? You will be on the run. Potentially for the rest of your lives, though there is a chance that this may be resolved eventually. Are you really prepared to do that? You, Albus, especially. Your family would not like what you are proposing."
"Yes." Albus said with no hesitation. "I know that it may anger and sadden my family, but Scorpius is right. There is no way Lagasete will let Rose slip through his fingers. In fact, I think the odds of a peaceful ending to this may increase if Rose is out of reach for him."
Draco nodded. "Very well. Then I may be able to help you. I have connections that may get us to Norway quickly. And potentially be able to find out exactly where Rose is held."
"Us? You're coming with us?" Scorpius asked incredulously.
"Absolutely. I am not going to let you two go off all alone. I have just got you back Scorpius. I won't risk losing you again." Scorpius smiled and gave his father another hug. Then the three sat down and started making plans.
Draco didn't say so, but his main reason for coming was to protect Scorpius. If it came down to it, he was going to let himself be arrested so that Scorpius and hopefully Rose would get away. He hoped it wouldn't come to that, but he was surprised to realise that he would do so without a moment's hesitation. Clearly, staying around all these Potters and Weasleys had rubbed off on him too. Or maybe it was just family love.
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