Ten Lessons from Lord Malfoy

No One will Ever Learn

Sadly

Silence, silence so loud you could hear the flame shifting across the top of the glass of fire whiskey. Such silence, the hissing of the gas in the lamps, and the flame front holding just above the mantle as they gave their chemical white light. It's amazing how much noise there is in the modern world, none of that noise, not even the slightest trembling decibel, disturbed the howling silence. Lucius Malfoy sat in the silence. He had learned a lesson today. Several in fact. Not just today either. It all started the morning of the second of September 1991, with the letter from the Heir of Malfoy. His son Draco.

Really before that but the lesson never sunk in until then. Lesson one, making children as nature intended was the best way to go. The daughters he had obliviated Narcissa of, and had adopted out were powerful, beautiful 'muggleborn' witches. Lucius knew, he had had them watched and protected by the most proficient hit witches who could be bought, and now they were killing machines, in Potters camp, his bed even. Watching them work on a few snatcher teams, in the memories they sent him, made him as hard as an iron bar. What they did with Potter, with his paramours smiling in the background, made him change his trousers. The male he had got, on one of his French cousins, and implanted the memory of bearing into Narcissa, was weak, and well, mentally deficient.

Lesson two. Half-bloods were exceedingly dangerous. Those raised in the muggle world even more so. Look no further than the Dark Lord, or Potter, for that. Dumbledore as well, but he was raised in the magical world, and in a different age, and had succumbed to dementia or grief over imprisoning his lover, or something. The Dark Lord had had his leg off for losing the diary before Lucius could think of an excuse. Potter, even while fighting the bindings Dumbledore had put on him, and still before his second maturity, nearly killed six inner circle members. With those bindings off, second maturity now obviously on the young wizard, well, no death eater survived meeting him.

Lesson three. Muggleborns were not to be trifled with. In addition to halfbloods, Potters rag tag army of murderers was nearly two thirds muggleborn, and with the least financial backing, from Potter of course, and a modicum of skills in research, from his mud, erh, muggleborn paramour Granger, they had mastered magics arcane and had the financial wherewithal to withstand any attack, the power to ward it off, and the resources, from the muggle world, to push the wizarding world to the very brink of extinction. Nymphadora Tonks, halfblood, was trained by a Black and was Potters second in the field. Apparently a place earned by skinning her pureblood aunt alive in the middle of Diagon alley, as Potter killed anyone who approached.

Lesson four. If you go after a pureblood family, kill the daughters. Bones, and the Greengrass witches, were very nearly as bad as the Tonks halfblood. Let's not even talk about Andromeda Black Tonks or the now Narcissa Black. They knew where the bodies were buried, and how to dig them up and turn them into inferni, figuratively, and send them shambling off to the ICW. Lucius cut his eyes to the notice of his trial for 'war crimes' from the ICW. His barristers hadn't even known there were such crimes in the magical world.

Lesson five. Do not let your obliviated wife get taken by her sister and the obliviations erased. He looked at the silver hand holding his whiskey glass, and thought of the mithril ball in his scrotum. His mind skittered over those events, not wishing to delve deeply, or at all, into that pain and horror.

Lesson six. Do not send boys to do men's work, even if it is at the most secure location you have. Lucius looked in the eyes of his only son and Heir, in the same son's decapitated head that crazed former Malfoy elf, Dobby had stuck to his desk facing him. The son that had 'Staleblood' carved across his formerly handsome brow, and fingers, apparently the same sons, braided into its gorgeous flowing Malfoy blond hair. Lucius wondered idly where the Heirs ring was. The scrotum hanging from his mouth was a bit over the top. Granger had done this. The boy's aunt had after all carved 'mudblood' on her with a cursed knife.

Which led to lesson seven. When you have your halfblood, insanely powerful, enemy and his paramour, no matter he is letting her play with an idiot blood traitor, in your dungeons, do not torture her. Kill her, and then him, as quickly as you can cast the curse. Then, if you must, torture the blood traitor toy she was playing with. Otherwise, from all evidence, the halfblood will lose his mind, something ugly and powerful will take him over, and you have to run for your life, and move to your second home. In fact, don't bring him to your primary seat at all, ever. Even if the Dark Lord is in fact in residence. Especially not then, as the Dark Lord will cheerfully destroy what the other halfblood does not in their brawl. Lucius shuddered. Being set upon by flaming peacocks had shown him the limit of his courage that day.

Lesson eight. Do not let the Dark Lord brand you with a mark he can use to call you to him, by making it hurt so bad you find your courage again, at least enough to hope the Dark Lord killed you so you would have relief.

Lesson nine. Do not abuse house elves. They are powerful, patient, and have memories like phoenix. I would write this down but every bone in my one hand is broken, my tongue has been ironed, and my ears, well I don't know where they are. Thankfully I can feel the poison that was poured down my throat working.

Lesson ten. When you lose an elf change your war- The whiskey glass dropped from the relaxing silver hand and spilled the burning liquid across the very flammable very expensive Persian mudblood hair rug.