Scorpius Malfoy

                                              How could I be condemned                                                        for the things I have done                                                                   if my intentions were good?

This roleplay / player supports, includes, and values TRANS PEOPLE and characters.

Narcissa tilted her head to the side as if considering Scorpius’s questions. They weren’t bad questions, after all. And, to be entirely frank, Scorpius was absolutely correct. As the heir to the name, he was responsible for the future of their great family. However, if there was any way that her grandson fell even remotely short of what they expected, Narcissa honestly couldn’t see what it was. 

“Scorpius, my darling,” she said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, “you are right. I am very happy that you take your obligation as heir seriously. It’s a good indication of your suitability to the role that you have inherited. However, as I said, I truly don’t believe that you could possibly be any sort of disappointment to any of us.” 

It broke her heart to hear that the children at Hogwarts– and some of the professors, she’d imagine– were being cruel to her grandson. While she had hardly expected their family to escape their actions during the war unscathed, she hadn’t ever anticipated that people would be so mean to a child. 

“Scorpius, you know that you are part of a very old and very significant family. However, you also know that there are those in our world who find it exceedingly difficult to forgive or to attempt to understand the motives of those who they have already judged and found wanting by their own standards.” 

She shrugged lightly. “I am sorry that they are taking out their petty vendettas on you, as you are a wholly innocent party but, sadly, that is what is to be expected of people with no breeding or manners,” she frowned briefly. “Please promise me that you will do your utmost to remember that you are treasured and loved and that their opinion hardly matters. Especially not when you’ve got those lovely friends of yours who obviously adore you.” 

Albus and Rose were hardly Narcissa’s favorite people. Albus was darling, truly, for a half-blood, but Rose was an utter disaster and neither of them were of the societal status that she would have once considered acceptable for friendship with her grandson. However, given that they were of considerable social standing in the current environment, they might be the very best way to help bolster her grandson’s self-confidence.

“Oh!” The startled exclamation slipped out involuntarily from Scorpius’s lips. It was followed immediately by a flush unfurling across his face as though he had just swallowed a handful of rose petals that were now sprouting along his pallid cheekbones. “No, that’s -- I’m sorry, grandmother, I should have explained better, that’s not what I meant.”

It wasn’t a bad assumption, all things considered -- wasn’t even an incorrect one either. There were plenty of people at Hogwarts, many of them within his own House, who regularly said truly awful things to, and about, Scorpius. It had gotten somewhat better after he made the Quidditch team last year -- had at least given his own housemates a reason to think positively about him in one area, anyway, even if it had only given students in the other three Houses more fuel for their dislike. Scorpius suspected that the fact that he was getting more proficient at hexing, jinxing, and brewing retaliatory draughts had more than a little bit to do with the slight decrease in open vitriol as well.

That, and people were probably just getting used to him. It was doubtless more exciting to insult a new face than it was to keep trotting out the same tired barbs for someone you saw day after day after day...not that it stopped some people.

But familiarity was a Portkey that travelled both ways; just as the novelty of insulting him wore off after a while, so too did Scorpius grow somewhat inured -- at least a little -- to those tedious, repetitive insults. He didn’t have to like it...but he was used to it. Mostly. It hardly ever even hurt, not really. At any rate, it wasn’t something that was going to stop, and it wasn’t something that he had any power over, so there was no sense fretting.

And grandmother was right. Between his parents, his grandparents, and his friends, what did he care what other people thought of him? They weren’t worth the fuss.

What was worth fussing over was the future of the wixen world at large, however. Scorpius wondered if this was how his grandfather had felt once upon a time when he had believed that the Dark Lord held answers instead of torment and tragedy. He tried to brush the thought away; tried to get his own thoughts in order. He took a deep breath and tried to explain: “It’s how much we’ve lost, all of us, not just the Blacks and the Malfoys and the Greengrass but everybody, the whole Wizarding World -- and no one seems to care. It’s like -- no, it’s like nobody wants to know our history. It’s like...they think if they look away, it will go away. But it won’t. It’ll just...decay around us. And then what will we be left with?”

He slumped forward, propping his suddenly heavy head in his hands. “Generations of magical history that nobody knows. Like it doesn’t matter -- but it does, because whether you know it or not it’s still there.” Just like the holes in the old Black Family Tapestry: the names might have been obliterated, but you could still see the gaps. Could still see what was missing. He looked up at his grandmother again, his grey eyes bleak. “You mentioned Albus and Rose? I know more about their families than they do, and they’re hardly even curious. And if they don’t care...” Scorpius didn’t have to finish the rest of the sentence: no one did.

“I mean, you’re technically correct but I have seen my mum fly at family functions, and we both know that Gwenog Jones doesn’t suffer bad players, so she must have been even better than she is now when she was training regularly.” 

He knew what point Scorpius was trying to make, but it didn’t change the fact that Puddlemere United probably wouldn’t be sacking any of their current line-up in order to put Albus in their place

He pretended to consider Scorpius’s last point before pulling a face. “I suppose you’re right. If she’s stupid enough to be with James in the first place, we’re probably stuck with her. I suppose I’m just hoping that she’s an ordinarily smart witch who he maybe got drunk or something.” 

He snorted, propping himself up to rest against the wall next to Scorpius. “I’d settle for being studied these days. It’d be more attention than I normally get that isn’t just someone hoping for an autograph,” he rolled his eyes. 

“You are insanely generous,” he argued, fighting the sarcastic tone in Scorpius’s voice. “Anyone who would say otherwise is an idiot.”

He considered the question for just a minute before answering. 

“No. I have absolutely no idea. I mean, I haven’t really given it much thought. I just sort of figured that we’d get a place. Like… Rose and you and me, I mean. And we’d… I dunno… figure it out whilst Rose takes over the world.”

It didn’t matter what they did, really. And, truly speaking, Albus figured that once Scorpius and Rose got together like everyone else figured they inevitably would, he’d have to figure out his shit then anyway. But, if Scorpius hadn’t figured that out yet, he certainly wasn’t going to point it out.

Scorpius waved-off Albus’s continued protestations of his mother’s skills -- not that he doubted Ginny Weasley-Potter was, and had been, a good flier; he had seen and even flown against her in a few pick-up matches himself, after all, and Scorpius wasn’t the sort of person who (often) dismissed the evidence of his own eyes. But so what? That didn’t have anything to do with Albus’s skills -- which was the point he tried one more time to make: “Well she’s not flying professionally any longer, is she?” Scorpius pointed-out tartly. “No. Her career is over, it can’t ever get any better than it’s already been. But you have the chance to maybe do better than she did. Because you aren’t done; you haven’t even started, is my point. So stop counting yourself out because you aren’t up to the standards of legends.”

He shook his head and slumped lower against the wall. “You’ll never be seen as equal to them, Albus, even if you surpass them.” Just like Scorpius could have spent every minute of his life acting like a hapless, saccharine doormat -- or rescuing infants from monsters -- and he’d still be seen by many as untrustworthy, malicious, manipulative, treacherous, and evil. “That doesn’t mean you have to just give up and settle for doing nothing.”

Albus was better than that -- Albus deserved better than that -- and it distressed Scorpius that his friend couldn’t see that; worse, that he didn’t seem to want to see that. Scorpius knew that his own self-esteem was sometimes lacking (a natural result, he always thought, of being perceived so poorly by so much of the world around him) but Albus’s similar lack of internal self-worth seemed, from Scorpius’s perspective anyway, to be almost entirely self-inflicted, and it was frustrating that he couldn’t ever think of a way to fix it.

He settled, for now at least, for saying smugly, “An idiot like your brother, for instance. And anyone stupid enough to shag him.”

Rose was always a little bit intimidated by the sheer size of the Malfoy gardens. She was more comfortable in the house, and had even become somewhat used to the lavish interior. However, the gardens were constantly shifting in color and contents. There were new topiaries or sculptures and as for the peacocks… well.. she didn’t think that anyone but Lucius was truly comfortable with the peacocks. 

Lucius was probably somewhere near the enclosure where the peachicks were sheltered. He generally was when outside. Based on the direction they were headed, Scorpius agreed with her unspoken theory. 

She had to admit that he had a point. Lucius was hair-gifted on levels that no mere mortal could possibly understand. They day that he had turned Albus’s rebellious follicles into something resembling a style was certainly a day for the ages. 

“It might have factored into my decision, yes,” she admitted. “Of course, I assumed he might have passed on some miracle hair cure on to you over the years and that, just maybe, we didn’t have to involve him personally.” 

She shrugged. “And you know that I don’t mind seeing your grandfather, Scor. It’s just that…” she gestured at her head. “I had hoped he wouldn’t be seeing this.”

Scorpius picked his way around a cutter of leaves and sniffed disdainfully -- not at the untidy leaves; this was a garden, after all, and sometimes things like that happened; but rather at Rose’s suggestion...or wishful thinking, perhaps, might be a more accurate descriptor. Either way, Scorpius wasn’t impressed with the idea. “Nonsense,” he blustered. “When faced with a disaster, you should always consult an expert for the best solution, not rely on intermediaries whose skills may not be comparable to the source.”

Not that Scorpius was inept at hair, of course -- he doubted that it was possible to be related to Lucius Malfoy and not have a talent, whether ingrained or instructed -- but he recognized that his own admittedly considerable talents weren’t anywhere near his grandfather’s level of expertise. And the catastrophe on top of Rose’s head right now clearly required an expert hand.

He did have to smirk at picturing his grandfather’s inevitable reaction to said catastrophe -- but he bit the inside of his cheek to try and suppress it before Rose could see. “Don’t worry,” he reassured her untruthfully, “I’m sure he’s seen worse. Somehow. Maybe.” The smirk came back and Scorpius gave up on fighting it because he caught sight of the object of their search stepping around a pale stone fountain and waved to attract Lucius’s attention.

“Grandfather, good afternoon!” he began, snagging Rose’s arm so she would have to follow him down the path. “I was hoping you might be able to help us--”

“That probably shouldn’t be reassuring, and yet…” Rose snorted, trailing off. The thing about being friends with Scorpius was that eventually, lots of things that shouldn’t be reassuring eventually became so. He had this way of  complimenting you that made you feel like you were just fortunate he wasn’t being meaner. 

“Do you truly think he will know what to do?” she asked as they strode from the receiving room where the floo was housed and into the Manor. 

By now, Malfoy Manor was familiar to her on levels that still made her parents hideously uncomfortable. She and Albus had spent quite a bit of time here over the past few years. And, while there were still large sections of the house that she’d never seen, she felt pretty comfortable in the majority of the place. 

Of course, usually she wasn’t about to admit to a horrifying impulse decision to a man whose style fashion was impeccable at the worst of times and flawless at the best. Whatever one could say about Lucius Malfoy– and there were many things– his eye for style was the best Rose had ever seen. In fact, Rose was convinced that he had even managed to make the prisoner’s uniform of Azkaban look fashionable. 

Scorpius laughed and led the way out through the wide French doors and down the stairs to the garden path. “And here you always say I’m terrible at offering comfort,” he teased. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel better than you did.” She was almost smiling, after all -- had been briefly amused, at least, which was more than one could have said about her mood before.

The sharp heels of his boots clattered on the stones while Rose’s weird, rubbery Muggle trainers made odd crunching noises. They startled a pair of squirrels, who fled to the safety of an arbor frame and chattered angrily at the two wix from the safety of the trumpet vines. Scorpius ignored them; while his grandfather didn’t bother fighting the fruitless war of banning squirrels from the garden, they also weren’t creatures he cultivated. If he had been in this section of flowers and hedges, the squirrels would have already fled from one of his stern looks. Scorpius decided to try the ponds.

He could have summoned an elf and asked -- but he knew the elves weren’t comfortable around Rose, and she wasn’t comfortable around their discomfort. Besides, the fewer of anything that saw Rose with her hair like that, even mere house elves, the happier she would probably be. And grandfather wasn’t the sort of wizard who was often hard to find.

He was also, at least in Scorpius’s opinion, one of the most talented wizards on the planet. (Scorpius realized he was biased; he just didn’t care.) At least in his chosen fields of specialization, there weren’t many -- or maybe any -- who could best him. And hair was definitely one of those fields. “Of course he will,” Scorpius thus assured Rose. “Grandfather can even make Albus’s hair behave, remember?” And if that wasn’t a feat worthy of an Order of Merlin, Scorpius didn’t know what was.

“I’m not my mum, that’s for sure,” Albus snorted and shrugged, but flushed all the same. Despite the fact that, when compared to his mother and Lily, Albus was a distant third, it felt good to hear Scorpius acknowledge his skills. 

He made a face and mock-shuddered. “I sincerely hope that James doesn’t knock anyone up. That’s hideous and no witch deserves that. And, if any of them were actually dumb enough to find herself in that situation, I would hope she would un-do it before a wedding was a thing.”

He shook his head. “Scor, you and I both know that if I did manage to pull ever, which I won’t because I have no flirting skills to speak of, I wouldn’t want it to be because of who my parents are.”

He shrugged. “And we both know that almost passable is a generous exaggeration on your part.” Scorpius’s next statement made him raise his eyebrow. “Know? Know what? What in the hell are you talking about?”

"Stop that,” Scorpius said crossly, poking Albus in the side. “Stop downplaying everything you do in comparison to who your parents used to be. You’re not your mum, but you know what? I’ve never seen your mother fly in a professional match, and neither have you. So all you’ve got to base her skills off is what other people have told you. Pick-up Quidditch with your family isn’t the same and you know it.-- and even then, she’s had professional training and you haven’t. So for all you know, you could be a better flyer than her. And nobody will ever recognize it because you didn’t fight in a war, but that doesn’t mean you can’t if you want to try.” Scorpius, after all, knew very well what it was like to face a world that measured you by the legends of your name rather than your own merits -- albeit in reverse.

He did smirk, despite his dark mood, at the mention of a James Potter Spawn. “If she’s stupid enough to want him in the first place,” he pointed-out apologetically, “do you really want to rely on her being smart enough to handle a disaster like that properly?”

Scorpius sighed and rested his head back on Albus’s shoulder, shrugging dismally. “I know,” he said. And he did -- again, from the opposite side, but it was the exact same coin; both of them carried names that made them symbols in the eyes of anyone they met long before they counted as people. He forced a smile and added lightly, “You may be the worst flirter I have ever seen, in fact. Someone should do a study on you.” Not that Scorpius could count himself as much better, not really. Yes, his grandfather had given him extensive advice and instructions, but what good was that without any practice?

Of all the things that Narcissa might have expected to be troubling her young grandson, this wasn’t even among the possibilities. She had been prepared for problems with friends, for a romantic entanglement perhaps, or maybe even something academic in nature. Exams were rapidly approaching, after all, and Scorpius so liked to do well in his academics. 

Instead, the poor boy was sitting around the manor and worrying about the future of his family line. What an utterly dear boy he was. 

Narcissa would have been lying to say that this wasn’t something that she’d thought of herself. You would have to be living under some sort of rock to be unaware of how the landscape of pure-blood society had changed after the war and the ruination that followed. So many prominent family lines had merely ended, their last surviving members carted off to Azkaban for war crimes. Truthfully, it was occasionally more than Narcissa could bear. 

But, this wasn’t about her. This was about Scorpius. 

“Darling,” she said, continuing to thread his hair through her fingers, “you needn’t worry about things like this. Our numbers are smaller than they once were. That’s very true. However, I should think that it’s very obvious that both the Malfoy and Black families have always been more concerned with quality than quantity.” 

The number of family members who had been removed for various infractions was certainly a good indicator of that. 

“And, I can tell you in all certainty that, when I consider where the quality of the future of our two great families lies, I have never been concerned even for a fraction of a moment.”

This was certainly true. Scorpius had been a blessing from his very birth. “I can honestly say that, at this moment, I am nothing but optimistic.”

Scorpius’s frown didn’t lighten, despite his grandmother’s reassurance. It wasn’t that Scorpius doubted her -- but over the last year or so, he had begun to suspect that sometimes his parents and grandparents coddled him a little bit. It wasn’t something he had voiced an objection to yet -- was not, in fact, even something he did object to more often than not, for all that at fourteen he was supposed to be entering a period of outraged adolescent independence, at least according to Rose; sometimes it was nice to be coddled -- but sometimes it wasn’t. Or at least, it wasn’t helpful.

Part of Scorpius was tempted to let grandmother go ahead and summon the elves and change the subject and push unpleasant thoughts aside for later -- but he thought of all those dead ends on that fading tapestry, all the names in the old books that had been crossed-out or abandoned to the decay of memory -- and he knew he couldn’t.

Scorpius took a deep, reluctant breath, and said, “I don’t want to be disagreeable, grandmother, but I feel like this is exactly the sort of thing I ought to be worried about. As the heir, I mean. Isn’t that sort of my responsibility? To be concerned about the future of the family?” He was the future of this family, after all -- concerned was probably putting it mildly.

It was more than just their family, though; it was the whole history of the magical world that was fading and shriveling before them. Not that magic itself was in any danger of dying out; there were days when Scorpius would have preferred there to be fewer students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in fact -- but so many of those students had no concept of their past, and even less interest in preserving the history of those who had come before.