Darth Theorist: @darththeorist
Three Eyed Theorist: @threeeyedtheorist
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Voice Acting & Narration: Steven Waters   ⁨@bobablackfly602 , James Kingdon @jameskingdonvoiceactor
Writing: Myself,  @nicholasmartin6526, @khuz377 , @PathofDragonsRadio, @TheITinFIT , and @Megara


Draco Malfoy is six years old the first time he asks the wrong question. He is sitting in his father's study, and he has just been told that a witch born to Muggle parents is a lesser kind of creature. It does not make sense to him, so he says so.
Draco (Six years old, puzzled): "But if magic is in the blood, and her mother and father have none, then where does hers come from? She must have got it somewhere."
Lucius (cold): "She did not get it. She took it. Such people always take what is not theirs."
Draco (puzzled): "Took it from who? You cannot just take magic. Can you?"
Lucius (cold): "That is enough, Draco. Go to your room and think on why a boy of your blood should not ask such things."
Draco does as he’s told. He goes to his room and he does think on it. The trouble is that he keeps thinking. He asks his father about it again a year later, worded more carefully, and he asks again the year after that. Each time he asks, the study gets a little colder, his father's face darkens a little further, and the young Malfoy learns that this is a house where some questions are not welcome.
Lucius deems Draco’s continuous questions worthy of discipline. Yet, he never strikes him. Whatever else the man is, he loves his son and cannot bring himself to be cruel to the boy's face. He believes every word of what he teaches. He is certain he is saving Draco from a mistake that could ruin the family.
He does not beat the belief out of his son. Instead, he chooses to wear it down through slow, painful interactions; a disappointed silence at dinner when Draco says the wrong thing; A guest smiling at the boy in a way that makes it clear he is being watched; Long weeks where his father will not quite look at him directly. Lucius’ approach is slower than a beating and it is worse, because there is nothing for Draco to fight back against.
Draco holds out far longer than a child should have to. He is stubborn, and under the stubbornness he knows he is right to ask questions. At the same time, he is just a boy, and he wants his father to look at him the way fathers are meant to. But Lucius keeps on wearing Draco down because he is frightened of what could happen to a Malfoy who asks the wrong questions where the wrong people might hear.
After years of endless dismissal and denial, Lucius wins. Draco stops arguing, stops asking questions, and his father mistakes the silence for agreement. Narcissa sees the whole of it, and she waits until the study door is shut and takes her son aside.
Narcissa (gentle): "You are clever, Draco, and cleverness is dangerous in this house. So listen to me carefully."
Draco (Nine years old, upset): "I only asked a question. I did not even say he was wrong."
Narcissa (firm): "I know it. And you may go on thinking he is wrong, as much as you like, but your father must never hear it."
Draco (defeated): "Then I have to lie to him. Always. Is that what you want?"
Narcissa (gentle): "I want you safe. That is the only thing I want. One day you will understand the difference between a lie and keeping yourself alive."
She teaches him to hide it the way other mothers teach a child to swim, because the water is already rising. The boy who comes down to breakfast the following morning is everything Lucius ever wanted: cold and proud and unquestioning. Lucius is delighted with him and tells him so, and for years that praise is the only warmth in the house. Narcissa watches her son earn it, knows exactly what each word of it costs, and keeps his secret with her.
Months after, Draco stands on a stool in Madam Malkin's being fitted for his first set of school robes, when a boy about his own age is put up on the stool beside him. The boy is small and thin and wearing clothes that were clearly bought for someone else. Curiously, there is nobody else in the shop, just the two of them and a witch with a mouthful of pins.
Draco does what he has been taught to do with a stranger, which is to make conversation. And here, for once, there is nobody watching him do it. So the boy who talks is not the practised heir of Malfoy legacy. It is just Draco, eleven years old, and glad for the company.
Draco (Eleven years old, friendly): "Are you starting this year as well? You look about my age."