TtH • Story • Invenio Cognatus

Categories	Author	Rating	Chapters	Words	Recs	Reviews	Hits	Published	Updated	Complete
Harry Potter > Non-BtVS/AtS Stories	Rachelie	FR18	6	11,498	1	14	6,860	13 May 04	17 Feb 07	No

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Draco,

I begin this journal as you play at my feet in our library. You look so happy and carefree. The rest of the household has been in turmoil since the downfall of Lord Voldemort, but you remain blissfully oblivious and I take small comfort in that. I am relieved your childhood will not be clouded by that murderous, domineering half-blood. I shudder to think what twisted world he would have created had he succeeded. He and his pathetic followers. For anyone who calls another ‘Master’ is a fool. Though Lucius would have you learn otherwise; don’t believe it. You are the proud descendant of two very noble, strong Pureblood families: the Malfoys and the Blacks. No one is your Master.

Your father would remake you in his image. I pray the few private times we spend together will prevent that from happening. I would teach you what it truly means to be a Slytherin. To be cunning, intelligent, strong, proud and finally, to be revered. NOT to be some sycophant of a crazy, delusional fanatic. Lucius has forgotten who he is, who his family is, in his quest for domination and power. He has forsaken us to pay homage to a madman.

I could go on about your father’s faults, his cruelty, but that is not my intent. I want to preserve the truth. Not whatever warped version Lucius would have you and others believe. I will record the truth in these pages until the opportunity presents itself to right the wrongs committed against us, especially to my daughter. I must go now, I will explain more later.

*********

Draco,

In order to understand the present, I have realized that it is imperative that you are aware of the past and how it all came to pass:

I fell in love with Lucius at Hogwarts. He was arrogant, ambitious, and charming; everything a Slytherin should be. He had successfully mastered the art of manipulation by his sixth year, just by using the force of his personality alone. He was passionate and intelligent; even gentle and loving. We used to sit in the Slytherin common room and discuss our dreams and ambitions for the future. We shared the same ideals; the same drive for success. United we were a force to be reckoned with.

My family was thrilled with my choice of husband and worked quickly to secure my betrothal to Lucius. We were wed in an extravagant, traditional Pureblood ceremony upon my graduation from Hogwarts. We were happily settled into Malfoy Manor and living the life we were meant for. Your father went into politics and quickly gained a reputation as a successful, ruthless politician with good prospects at becoming the next Minister. I was well on my way to becoming a Potions Mistress when everything changed because of a man named Tom Riddle.

Tom Riddle was a powerful, charismatic wizard. His knowledge and affinity for the dark arts surpassed even that of Grindelwald. A half-blood orphan abandoned by his muggle father, Tom craved recognition and glory from the Wizarding World. Determined to prove himself to the world that had spurned him, he took the name Lord Voldemort and created a dark order known as the Death Eaters. Using his charisma and the lure of knowledge and power the dark arts provide, Lord Voldemort hid his muggle background and managed to secure the loyalty of many Pureblooded Wizards, particularly wealthy Purebloods.

Lucius was introduced to Lord Voldemort by my sister, your aunt Bellatrix, and her husband, Rodolphus Lestrange. Lucius, Bella, and Rodolphus had been very close mates in Hogwarts and it was not difficult for Bella to garner Lucius’ interest. After all, many of us shared Lord Voldemort’s beliefs in the purity of blood and inferiority of muggles and muggle-borns alike. It was a long-held desire by many old Pureblood families to rid the Wizarding World of muggle-born rabble and to keep the Wizarding world isolated from the muggle world. In fact, many Death Eaters were previous classmates or family friends of Lucius and I. We were invited to many dinner parties and other ostentatious social gatherings whilst my sister and Rodolphus attempted to recruit Lucius and the Malfoy fortune into “the cause”.

Lucius attended many Death Eater meetings before being inducted. He never shared with me what occurred at these events and, from an outsider’s viewpoint, it all seemed innocuous and beneficial to the Malfoy name. I was meeting many witches and wizards of great consequence who normally didn’t traverse within our social circle: government officials from Britain, Bulgaria and France, world-renowned Masters of different crafts such as Potions, Charms, and Arithmancy, and extremely lucrative businessmen and women with businesses that spanned all walks of Wizarding life.

Later I learned that Lord Voldemort and his followers, all those associates I had met and admired, had a much darker and bloodier purpose in mind than banishment of the muggle-borns. A mad, depraved despot; Lord Voldemort craved the entire destruction of the Wizarding and muggle worlds and the creation of a new world order. A world where wizards ruled over muggles, and the Dark Lord ruled over all.

I do not know what drew your father into the dark fold. I cannot fathom any reason worth sacrificing one’s freedom to pledge oneself to the service of another, particularly that fanatical megalomaniac. Had I known what being a Death Eater entailed, what Lucius would give up for that privilege, I would have done everything in my power to prevent it. For the day he accepted the Dark Lord’s mark and absolute rule, he damned us all to a life of servitude and fear.

*********

Draco,

My sister, Bella, and her husband have been captured by the aurors and sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban. It is too small a punishment for the crimes they have committed in the name of their supposed Dark Lord. Even vanquished, he still controls my sister’s thoughts and actions. Lucius has managed to escape justice. The Malfoy name, wealth, and his position within the Ministry secured his freedom. He was declared “innocent of any wrong-doing” due to being a “repeated victim of the Imperious curse”. Incompetent fools, the entire lot of them in the Ministry. They were powerless to stop Lord Voldemort and now that he has fallen they are self-righteous and sanctimonious. I cannot let all the blame fall onto the Ministry. Lord Voldemort and his followers fooled many wizards. Myself included. I even unknowingly helped them in achieving their notoriety.

In the beginning, when the Dark Lord and his followers were no more than an extremist political faction, I helped your father in his endeavor to gain power and prestige within Voldemort’s following. We plotted and schemed using all our Slytherin cunning to gain Lucius favor and discredit those who opposed him. It is an art form, Draco – political maneuvering. Using manipulation as skillfully as an artist would wield a brush. The ability to place doubt or confidence in another’s worth or skill by uttering the right phrase in the right ear at the right moment. I remember how powerful it felt – being able to manipulate others so easily. It was invigorating and seductive; weaving nets of deception during a dinner party or ball. We were a formidable team.

It wasn’t until Lucius became a member of Lord Voldemort’s inner circle that I became suspicious about the actual dealings of the Death Eaters. I should have questioned the truth of Lucius’s words the moment I noticed subtle discrepancies in what he revealed to me and what I learned from Bella and Rodolphus. But your father’s skill of spinning lies and half-truths is rivaled only by those of Voldemort and I allowed him to turn my attention to other things. I feel I must also add that at the time I was immersed in my studies to become a Potions Mistress.

It was only after I began my internship under a Potions Master that my concerns regarding Lucius’s involvement with Lord Voldemort returned. My Potions Mentor was world-renowned and allowed only the brightest applicants to study under his tutelage. The year that I began my hands-on training with him, I became reacquainted with his only other intern, an old Hogwarts classmate of mine, Severus Snape.

As Severus and I renewed our friendship, he confessed to me his involvement in the Death Eaters. The closer Severus and I became, the more I learned about Lord Voldemort’s madness and his absolute rule over his Death Eaters. Severus was having serious misgivings about the path the Dark Lord was leading his followers down. Although Severus’s skills at potion brewing was quickly making him a favored Death Eater, he was not a member of the inner circle and was not privy to the Voldemort’s plans or the more secretive dealings of the privileged few.

One evening, about two years after Lucius joined the Death Eaters, I was checking on a particularly complex potion we had been tasked to brew, when Severus stumbled into the lab. Tears streamed down his stricken face mixing with the blood splattered on his black cloak. He came to an abrupt halt and his body stilled when he noticed my presence. As if some light had been extinguished, all emotion drained from his face, his eyes became hollow and empty, and his skin turned ghostly pale in the torchlight. He was in shock - traumatized. That was the thought that kept circling through my head as I tried to reassure and comfort my dear friend. It took me a few hours but I finally coerced an explanation for his appearance and behavior from him.

Severus, at the behest of the Dark Lord, had attended a dark revel, an exclusive meeting held by Voldemort for his inner circle. Severus was initiated into this ‘elite’ group that very night and was, consequently, expected to participate in the evening’s festivities. I knew the Death Eater’s manner of persuasion was not well received amongst the wizard community, but the depth of their depravity, their malice, left me reeling.

I will not commit the atrocities Severus bared to me to paper, but suffice it to say that when his tale of death, torture, and cruelty was finished I knew more than I ever wanted to know about the monster my husband called master. Severus made me swear a Pureblood oath of honor to never repeat the details I had learned that night to anyone. He was afraid of retaliation for breaking his vow of silence. And to this day I have not. Draco, I am entrusting you with Severus’s life should the wrong people ever discover he confided in me. Even many years later, he would pay for that folly. He would pay for his regret at ever hearing the word Death Eater.

After that night, the pieces began to fall into place. I saw your father in a whole new light, or rather, for the first time in a long time. But even with what I knew, I still held hope. A damning, deceitful emotion: hope. Hope leads one away from the logical to the illogical. It allows one to think with one’s heart and not one’s mind. I made a decision that night, a horrible decision. I decided to reclaim my husband no matter the cost.

For months I schemed and conspired, I coaxed and cajoled. I used seduction, emotion, coercion; anything and everything to turn Lucius away from Voldemort. And though Lucius obviously enjoyed some of my more passionate attentions, he was irrevocably dedicated to his Dark Lord. I made one desperate final attempt to reach the man I had married – I got pregnant.

Invenio Cognatus

Chapter 5

The End?