Warning: Mild Lang, Violence. Lucius Malfoy, Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy. NoT Slash. Full credit to JKR & WB. English is not my native language, so please excuse me.

Spoiler to GOF you may need to reread CHAPTERS 33-34 to understand. Takes place in the Cemetery after Lord Voldemorts return with Harry trying to get back to the portkey.

Loyalty

By Tracev/Wittchway

Lucius Malfoy/Death Eater POV

Lucius Malfoy shivered at the scene before him, the Potter boy was on the ground wand in hand, clutching his chest. His face howled with pain, sweat, tears poured from the boy, blood on his robes, on his lips. The Death Eaters stood around the boy and Voldemort as they prepared to duel. The niceties, the forced bow, Voldemorts evil laugh, the scene in a graveyard in the dead of the night, bats flying over head, cruelty all around, loyalties long forgotten, exaggerated and lost. It all swirled in Lucius's head.

I watched Voldemort, watched the vengeful torture of a boy who was to young to know why he was truly here, fighting for parents he couldn't remember, for a cause he didn't understand. Voldemort would be merciless on the boy, the dark Lord hit the boy over and over with curses, and spell to advance for him to know, to advance for him to deflect. I watched the scene, I watched my fellow Death Eaters cheers and jeers, I watched a boy who had no advance training, a boy who was not Voldemorts equal, fight for his life.

I stood in the circle with the Death Eaters, I listened to their hollers of support for our side. The laughs as the boy fell into the crowd and they carelessly threw him back to the wolf. I watched the boy stumble, listened to his cries of despair of his weak attempts to escape. The hidings of childlike innocence behind forgotten headstones. A child's tactic, to run, to seek protection. I can only imagine what was going through Potters mind at this time. Probably nothing more than survive. Because that was what I was thinking at that moment, survive.

I backed away from the circle, I couldn't take it anymore. The Death Eaters, Voldemorts shouts. These people, people who had been my true and only friend once so long ago. People who now I barely talked to. People who disgust me and whom I loathed. I was a Malfoy and was truly better then all of them combined, why I once associated with such riffraff was beyond me.

I walked to where Cedric Diggory's body lay on the ground nestled between graves and death, between right and wrong, heaven and hell. I wandered over to the body of the boy, I knelt down next to the boy. For all it's worth in the past I have killed many times, I've kill and not looked back, I've tortured and enjoyed. Maybe if I had looked back, maybe if I stood and truly looked at what it is I had done, just maybe…

And so there I was kneeling really looking at my first dead body in my forty years. At a boy of perhaps sixteen, a handsome boy somewhere with proud parents, I'm sure. A boy with light blond hair falling in his eyes, not a mark on him besides a small scrape on the arm. He looked almost peaceful. I don't know what made me do it but I reached out to brush a strain of blond hair out of his eyes, but I couldn't. All I could hear was my own father's voice pounding in my mind, don't touch what you kill. I had followed those words faithfully to this day. But for the life of me I had never truly understood what they meant, till today.

To touch what you destroyed made it to personal. It brought you closer to the victim, it awaken the human mind. It made you question why you did it. To touch gave you emotions and guilt. To not touch kept you cold inside. So there I was questioning it. The battle around me gone, it was just I and the boy.

I looked down into the boy's grey eyes. Looked down to see those cold dead eyes staring at me, watching me. Yet I did what my father said not to, what I had even droned into my own son, I brushed the hair out of his eyes and closed the boy's eyelids.

My hands actually shook, can you believe it. My-Hands-Shook. Was I scared, I Lucius Malfoy scared…I think in that moment I was. How could I not be? My lord Voldemort killed this innocent boy, killed with out questioning, killed with out knowledge, this could have been a Death Eaters son for all he knew. Of course I knew what Voldemort was, I knew what his intentions were and the reason. All this time I had supported a monster, had brained washed my son to believe and support a man he didn't know. I filled his head with thoughts and feelings that he was to young to understand. Told him of a battle that was over with before he was 1yrs old.

The school would tell my son of Cedrics passing, how would he react? He didn't know death, he had never been to a funeral, he had never seen death first hand, the things I've told him, pureblood pride, hate muggles, mudbloods. He didn't know what those words truly meant. He had never dealt with any of it. All he had to go on was the ramblings of his father, of me. Trying to maintain some lost life 15 years ago, some lost glory that changed the day he was born.

It was almost like bedtime stories, trying to explain what merriment I had with Death Eaters, as a Voldemort supporter. I implanted these images in his head of a boy his own age having this extrodnairy life and adventure. What he didn't know was it was a boy with out parents, with out a caring family. I told him stories of things that happened 10years before he was born, a life I was already getting tired of when he was born. I failed to tell him so much in those moments, I failed to believe those things truly happened for so long. I failed to give him another life. I failed to preserve his child like innocence. It always seemed different in the stories, better some how.

It's funny how you forget the detail as time passes. You forget the pain and hurt, the aches and distress it all caused. You forget the work and time you have to put into being evil, to kill, the organization and late nights. The broken promises and fights with the wife. You push your mental anguish as well as you mental suffering away, it hides in you but it will return it always does. The moment you see it again or are confronted with it all again, all those little detail you forgot come rushing back to you. Suddenly you remember it all, you remember the people and faces and names of a life long past.

Here I am thirteen years later in a graveyard watching Voldemort torture the boy who had been his downfall. Had that much time really gone by, was my son truly that old, was I really here on this over cast raining night in a graveyard, for some great wizard I had not seen in fourteen years. Telling lies of support, of attempts to help him regain his strength just so I don't get the forbidden curse thrown at me. When really all these years I had been thankful for the Potter boy's life. For the sacrifice his parents gave in him, for the boy's own battles to keep Voldemort from coming back year after year.

The silence, that's what distracted me. Silence. I looked to where Voldemorts and Harry Potter's wand were connected together and were glowing gold like I had never seen before. They were in a sort of golden cage and a song played, it was beautiful, a Phoenix song I believe. It was filled with hope and comfort. I knew the song wasn't for me but for Harry Potter. But I shut my eyes to it, letting it absorb me, letting it lift my soul and my own hopes.

When I reopened my eyes there were other people in the cage with Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter. Faint glimpses of ghostly figures. There was the boy who was at my feet, James and Lily Potter and many more I did not know. They all were speaking to Harry Potter, they were whispering secrets and orders. The boy struggled to hold the wand.

It's the look on Lord Voldemort face that made my decision for me. Voldemorts face was pale and clearly shocked by all that was happening. He was shocked that the boy had so many hidden talents and had powers even the boy didn't seem to know about. He had a look of bewilderment. He was tired of playing this game, he was tired that once again the Potter boy was causing him problems. Then suddenly Potter was running toward me, was running toward Cedrics body. Curses directed toward him were flying right at me. Potter skidded to a halt in front of me, gathered up Cedric in his arms, he looked right at me. His large emerald eyes looking up at me. There was no question he knew who I was. He didn't cower in fear nor did a look of hate cross his face. His wand out, directed towards I, "Accio" he shouted, the portkey flew around me right into his hand and he was gone.

I stood there for a moment half-dumbfounded by what had just happened. Potter was gone back to Hogwarts where my son was. I stood and looked at the other Death Eaters, more were quickly appearing, wands all pulled, hoods up. I stumbled from where I stood into a nearby headstone an angle positioned on top had his wings spread. I did what he did, I raised my face to the darkening sky eyes tightly shut, arms spread wide and I prayed. I prayed that Voldemort did not seek more followers, that he not seek out my son, I prayed he not find him before I got him in hiding. I pray my son did as I said without question, without battle. I prayed he would appreciate the sacrifice I was about to make to give him a better life.

I opened my eyes one last time and looked at the Death Eaters, then at Lord Voldemort and he looked back. His red eyes saw into my open soul, saw what I was about to do. He raised his wand to perform the killing curse and I smiled, hell I almost chuckled and apparated away.

TBC

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