Work Text
Prologue
Harry Potter’s signature spell in Hogwarts had been the Expelliarmus; Theodore Ignatius Nott’s signature spell in the years since the Battle of Hogwarts was the Imperius. Not that he had ever used it yet.As he grew closer to his goal, he found that more and more often, his mind wandered back through his memories and relived the thousand moments that had led him to right now. He had always been a model child. His father had always been a man that valued efficiency in all things. What was the most efficient way to get baby Theo to do something when you’re a businessman, a Lord of the Wizengamot, and you moonlight as a murdering Death Eater? The Imperius of course.Before arriving at Hogwarts as a snotty little firstie, Theo couldn’t remember a week going by without being put under its hold. He didn’t remember anything about his mother, but he did remember how it felt when he began breaking down at the news of her death. Vividly, the smell of parchment burning in the embers of the fire in his father’s study. How his heart was simultaneously beating a thousand times a minute, but also dropping down from his chest, through the polished walnut floor, and down into the cellar. Alive but also dead.Theo sat, slumped back in the chair of his own study. His breath hitched as he recalled what came next. He remembered going from Firebolt top speeds to… inertia. There was no other word for it. How it felt to be the unstoppable force that was felled by the immoveable object that was the Imperius. ‘Stop it.’ That’s all Tiberius Nott had said.The only thing that reminded him of the feeling was when he had gone with Tracey to a muggle theme park. She had gone on and on about how nothing compared to the first time you got dropped on a rollercoaster, giddy with joy during their summer dalliance after their final year. The drop came and went. It was nothing special. If the drop had been... well, if it had been a drop… That first time of being under the Imperius had been all of the oceans and seas right down to the depths, down to the centre of the Earth itself.Clinically, he knew what he had done over the years. The closest thing he had seen to it in literature was Mind Healers discussing muggle psychological theories. Stockholm Syndrome. It was like that. He hadn’t grown attached to his father though, thank Merlin for that. No, he had instead grown attached to the feeling of the curse itself. He had even, in the years just before starting Hogwarts, begun to ‘act out’ around his father, waiting for the inevitability of its warm embrace.His first term at Hogwarts had been horrible. To go for months without feeling it. Everyday he had to rely on his own decision-making and guard his emotions. The snake pit had somehow accepted him anyway, taking his silent unrest as quiet power. His father’s reputation had actually helped to keep the prying eyes away and Draco’s peacocking was loud enough to soak up the attention of anyone in the castle, for better or worse.He had been indifferent to the Boy-Who-Lived, despite knowing of what his father, and even further most of Slytherin, thought of him. In flashes throughout the first term, he had seen parts of himself in Potter. He knew what it was. It was what he would’ve acted like without constant corrections by way of the Imperius. Unsure. Diffident. Wary. As first year progressed, he saw the kindred spirit in Potter die and give way to what he had been told was the model Gryffindor.The years at Hogwarts had, for him, progressed with the banality of what school is like for the vast majority of people around the world. His obsession with the Imperius grew as those around him went from children to teenagers and bastardised child soldiers. His obsession grew through his puberty, to dreams of wielding it himself. The night after Mad-Eye’s first lecture, he hadn’t slept a wink as he closed his eyes and faces of his fellow classmates resting under the Imperius flitted back and forth across his imagination.When the Dark Lord had been defeated, Theo played the part of heartbroken son well. He had grown into a true Slytherin, unbeknownst to him, somewhere along the way. When he passed his age of majority, he had his mind settled on Tracey being his first.The Tracking of the Unforgiveables never went away. For months he had fallen into depression with the knowledge that what he had been building towards was now impossible. He knew it was the height of folly to raise the issue of the Tracking in the Wizengamot, but oh how he wished for some asinine leftover Death Eater to try it anyway.It had been hearing of Potter’s adventures after his year, ‘the Eighth Years’ as they had been called by the press, left Hogwarts that had given him the kick up the backside he had needed to do something about his dreams. To make them become reality. Theo sat up and stretched, his lithe frame taut with tense muscle. He relaxed after a satisfying series of small cracks along his spine and looked across the chaos of his desk. His study – it hadn’t been his father’s study for nigh-on two years now – reflected his desk. Scrolls of parchment lay in piles in one corner, obscuring part of the bookcases that ran along a whole wall of the once-imposing wood panelled room. The light of the fire refracted through a decanter of firewhiskey that sat on a table in front of it, shades of amber dancing over the warm white of the everburning candles held in sconces along the wall opposite.Theo looked down at the tome in front of him. He was just past halfway through filling this one out, but he knew he was getting close. He could feel it. He cricked his neck one way, then the other, and got up and grabbed the overcloak that he had thrown onto the back of one of the sofas yesterday. He leant down and picked up a monochrome oni mask that was next to the firewhiskey, put it on, threw some floo powder from the mantelpiece into the fire, called out his destination, and departed in a burst of green flames. Lord Malfoy’s days had, for the past sixteen months, consisted of nothing but meetings. The family wealth had barely survived Riddle’s War only thanks to how hedged it was against the various different sectors within the magical world. Some would say Malfoy had his finger in many different pies. They were wrong, he had his finger in every pie, and was elbow deep in your pantry while you were too busy complaining about how unfair it was. Since Riddle’s War, Malfoy had helped himself to some humble pie (in the privacy of his own manor of course) and begun investing in muggle industries. Land had always been a strong and stable source of income for magicals, and he had found out that it was also true for muggles. In the past year he had burnt through the vaults by greasing the right palms in order to buy and sell muggle homes. It had left him somewhat comfortable now, and he felt he could step away from dirtying his hands in such a way and live his life without worrying overly about having to work again.Of course, making money wasn’t all that he’d been doing. After first being exposed to the muggle financial world, he had formulated a campaign in the Wizengamot to overhaul the current system of Galleons, sickles, and knuts. Whichever Merlin-forsaken fool had decided that twenty knuts was to equal one sickle, and that seventeen sickles were equal to a galleon, must’ve had to pause every few minutes to scratch his head with a knuckle-dragging fist as he went around posturing about his masterpiece of mathematical mumbo jumbo.He sighed and shook his head free of his thoughts. It was all in the past now, thank Morgana. He gathered the papers he had readied for tomorrow’s Wizengamot session, checked around the small but well-furnished office afforded each of the Peerage, and made his way out. He managed to make it to the atrium before the small clamour of press shuffled and sidestepped around him, peppering him with questions.“Lord Malfoy, foreign officials have expressed their interest in adopting a similar decimal-based currency. Have you been in talks with the governments of Greece and Finland recently?”“Some lords have insinuated that the changes you’ve been pushing for more recently are only a red herring and that you intend to push for the traditionalist policies that House Malfoy has backed in the past – any comments?”“Samuel Fawley, Global Gazette. There are many in America that believe you inherited your lordship under rather controversial circumstances. Any words to put their worries to rest?”He only just managed to not seethe outwardly at the last question. Cheeky bastard, he thought as he shrugged them all off without a word and flooed to Knockturn Alley. He had his daily appointment with Gringotts for updates on his holdings, but a pang of hunger was he needed to delay meeting the slimy shits and instead go for a spot of lunch at the Leaky. The throng of people meandering about in the Alley parted as he walked, as if he were emitting an aura of subtle power. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth at the thought.Lord Malfoy stepped away from the crowd and up towards the ancient pub.“Oi, ferret!”