Answer: I rarely indulge in daydreams, but there is one scene in my life I have often re-written to my satisfaction. (Some dialogue taken directly from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)


Harry?" The Mudblood's voice is soft, barely above a whisper. I hold my breath, not daring to make a sound, and thrust one arm outward to keep the others back.


"What?" Potter snarls.


"I... I don't think Sirius is here."


He's come looking for Black. The Dark Lord always knows. After all this time, I don't know why that should surprise me, but it never fails to do so.


Silence except for the sound of their footsteps drawing nearer. There must be half a dozen of them, and there is no doubt they are but children. No attempt at stealth. They may as well be preceded by a brass band. Then: "Harry?"


"What?"


Dolohov stirs, and I wave him off. We will not make the same mistakes they have made. Surprise remains our most formidable weapon.


"Have you seen this?"


"What?" Potter says again, and this time there is an edge of eagerness to his voice.


"It's - it's got your name on."


My heart rate quickens. There is no doubt that the prize we seek is nearly within our grasp.


"My name?"


"What is it?" The other boy's voice quivers, and I can imagine the look of surprise and trepidation that must be on his face. "What's your name doing down here? I'm not here. None of the rest of us are here."


"Harry, I don't think you should touch it." The girl again. I close my eyes for just a moment, damning her meddling soul straight to her muggle hell.


"Why not? It's something to do with me, isn't it?"


"Don't, Harry." Another boy's voice. Potter seems to have emptied Hogwarts in his ill-advised attempt to rescue his godfather.


"It's got my name on."


I peer cautiously around the corner, holding my breath. Potter's fingers close around the prophecy, and I want to sing as he slowly lifts it from its place on the shelf. He stares at it for a few seconds, his curious expression lit by its soft glow, then brushes some of the dust from its surface.


My mind whirs as I watch. Such an auspicious moment should be accompanied by the ringing of church bells, or the sound of a choir of angels. Anything but this crushing press of silence. And yet, it seems appropriate, somehow, that this reverent atmosphere should be the setting for the last moments of Potter's life. This is the way the world ends; not with a bang, but a whimper.


"Very good, Potter," I say, and my voice sounds very loud in the stillness. I don't even try to mask the triumph I am feeling, but allow it to drip from my every word. "Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."


Potter hesitates. A flick of my finger, our pre-arranged signal, and Crabbe, Jugson and Rabastan close ranks behind the group of teenagers. Before they can turn and raise their wands, jets of red light fill the air, and all but Potter fall to the ground. He looks around wildly, his fingers tightening around both wand and prophecy.


"To me, Potter," I say again, advancing with my hand outstretched.


"Where's Sirius?" The boy's eyes are wide and terrified. He takes a step backward as I move toward him; his final mistake. Crabbe locks his meaty fingers around Potter's forearms and drags him back against his chest.


"Your race is run, Potter," I breathe. "Give me the prophecy."


One last attempt at defiance as he lets the small spun-glass ball drop from his fingers. An easily anticipated move. My Accio reverses its course, and it falls into my hand with a muted smack.


The last thing I see as I Apparate away to my Lord is a blinding flash of green light.

Answer: A spot of muggle torture usually does the trick.


"...and I, for one, am sick of it."


"Walden, you're drunk." The corner of Narcissa's lip curled upward with disgust.


"No 'm not." Macnair staggered across the room to the bar and picked up the bottle of firewhiskey. "And so what if I am?" he said, spilling another measure of the whiskey into his glass. Narcissa tsked as the glass overfilled and the excess slopped over onto the dark wood. "I've got good reason to be."


"What reasons are those?" I asked, amused, as a house-elf rushed forward to mop up the mess. Macnair never failed to put on a good show in his cups. "Ireland won the match, didn't they? I should think you'd be thrilled."


"Look around you, Lucius," Macnair said, swaying on his feet. "We're in hiding. All of us. 'No magic where the muggles might see it.'" This last was delivered in a high, slurred falsetto, a credible imitation of the Ministry witch who'd given us the instruction. "Bloody anti-muggle security." He tipped the glass to his lips and took a long draught. His moustache was dripping when he lowered it.


"I should think you would find it rather difficult to feel deprived under the circumstances, Macnair," Severus said quietly, with a pointed look around the room. He was the only person among us without a glass in his hand. "Lucius has very nearly recreated Malfoy Manor, and I don't see Ministry officials swooping in to chide him for it."


"Lucius has the Ministry in his hip pocket," Macnair retorted, and I smiled into my snifter. "There are very few others who could get away with a set-up like this. Avery, Goyle, am I right?"


"Hear, hear!" Avery said, raising his glass to me, and I nodded my silent thanks for the toast. Goyle merely grunted, his pudgy cheeks flushed a deep red. Macnair's beady eyes narrowed in on the empty tumbler in Goyle's mitt-sized hands, and he grabbed the bottle from the bar.


"'S an insult, I tell you." As he approached with the bottle, Goyle lifted his glass unsteadily; it took Macnair three tries before the whiskey sloshed against the bottom. The rest formed an amber puddle on the floor at his feet. "Mmm. Sorry 'bout that, Narcissa." I did not need to see my wife's face to know the expression that had crossed it. With a disdainful sniff, she set her brandy down on the table and, stiff-backed, left the room without another word.


Macnair leaned an elbow on the back of Goyle's armchair and tucked the bottle under his arm. "'M sick of it, I tell you. There's no reason we should have to live like this. To think we were this close --" he lifted his free hand to his face and squinted between his thumb and forefinger, which were a few centimetres apart "-- to seizing power. The Dark Lord would have seen to it that we would never have to hide ourselves away like this again." He belched and his voice grew deadly quiet, his eyes unfocussed as though trying to catch a glimpse of a distant memory. "I miss the days when we were able to put fear into the muggles and mudbloods whenever the mood struck us to do it."


"To the old days," Crabbe said, hauling himself to his feet, and a chorus of voices gabbled in response. The room was silent for a moment as we all drained our glasses, and then everyone was talking at once.


"Remember when --"


"I'll never forget the time --"


"The best thing was --"


"Gentlemen," I said, raising my voice just enough to be heard over the babble. The crowd quieted as I rose, leaning on my cane. The torchlight suddenly seemed over bright to my eyes. "I believe," I said, once every head had turned in my direction, "that there is a family of muggles here, on this very campsite."


***


It was a simple matter to transfigure the robes and masks we required, and simpler yet to break into the muggles' home. The woman screamed and the children cried, but it was the man's frustrated shouts that made me laugh hardest. I almost regretted having to take their voices, so fulfilling was it to hear his squeaky demands that we release them at once.


Even better were the shrieks of panic as we marched across the campground with the muggles high above us, illuminated in a flood of greenish light. Nott shot hex after hex up into the air, and the muggles twitched and jerked, their bodies contorting as the spells hit. To my surprise and delight, even Severus got in on the fun, flipping the muggle woman upside down so her nightdress ballooned around her head. I nearly doubled over with laughter as she struggled in vain to regain her modesty.


The crowd around us swelled as we crossed the campsite. The odor of alcohol was strong in the air, mixed with the scent of victory and the nearly-forgotten thrill of inciting mayhem. It was a heady combination and I forgot all semblance of dignity, laughing until my face was wet with tears and the inside of my mask heavy with perspiration.


Macnair, I realized, had been right. I had missed this more than I would have thought possible. Once again we were showing muggles the superiority of wizards, and my heart swelled with the joy of it.


As we approached the edge of the woods, a group of Ministry wizards appeared around us, and I was dimly aware that the sounds of our merrymaking was being replaced by the noise of a scuffle at the edges of the crowd. But I didn't care. My standing within the Ministry was secure, and I blasted another tent out of the way to make room for us to pass.


Suddenly Severus, who had been walking in front of me, stopped short without warning, and I stumbled and fell headlong against his back.


"Good gods, man, what are you --" I shouted, but a flash of green light up ahead made me bite my tongue. A glittering shape was rising above the treetops like a spectre, another long-forgotten memory that turned my blood to ice.


And then the laughter died.

Answer: Of course I do. I am a Malfoy. Allow me to share one of my earliest childhood memories with you.


"Father, are you a king?"


He didn't answer me right away. This was no surprise; I hadn't really expected him to. I knew I was not to disturb my father with childish prattle before he finished eating, but my brain had been buzzing with questions since our return from Knockturn Alley that afternoon.


I glanced at my mother. She gave me an indulgent smile and gestured toward my plate. "Eat, Lucius."


I picked up my fork and gave my dinner a half-hearted poke, swinging my legs under the table. Someday they would be long enough to reach the ground, I thought.


"No," my father said at length. He set his fork down on the table and wiped both corners of his mouth with his napkin, laying it on the table before he spoke again. "I am not a king. Kings are a... muggle invention." His thin lip curled in a disdainful sneer and I mimicked him, my mouth contorting subconsciously with no real understanding of the emotion behind the expression.


"Then why was everyone so nice to you today?"


Father sat back in his chair. "Well, I suppose you could say we are as close to royalty as it is possible to get among wizards."


"Why?"


"Because we are Malfoys."


My brow furrowed. Father's tone made it sound as though the logic behind this statement should be obvious even to a child of my age, but I had no idea what he was trying to say. "What's so great about being a Malfoy?"


Mother's goblet stopped halfway to her mouth, and the wine sloshed a bit as she shot my father a nervous glance. Father's grey eyes narrowed as he studied me, his fingers plucking unconsciously at a patch of lace on the tablecloth. I stopped swinging my legs and sat very still, my heart thudding with a sudden surge of anxiety. I'd said something wrong. I didn't know what it was, but I knew enough to fear that gleam in my father's eyes.


"Give me your hand," he said, his voice low and tense. I dropped my fork to the table and offered it timidly, and he snatched it up and dragged it toward him, drawing his wand at the same time. He said something in Latin I did not understand, and the tip of his wand gleamed as it changed to a needle-sharp spike. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my mother shifting in her chair; she seemed about to say something but my father ignored her and pulled my hand closer.


Without warning, he drove the needle into the tip of my finger.


The cry that leapt from my throat was born of surprise more than pain. My vision blurred with a sudden rush of tears and I tried to jerk my hand out of Father's grasp, but he held it tightly, squeezing my finger until a fat drop of crimson welled where the skin had been broken.


"Look at this, Lucius," he said in that same low, ominous tone. "This is what makes being a Malfoy so great. Your blood. You have the blood of many generations of wizards running through your veins. This blood -- the purest of blood -- is the only kind of blood worth having." He released my hand and my finger flew to my mouth; I wasn't sure if the salt I tasted on my lips came from my blood or my tears.


"You may leave the table."


I was no longer bleeding when I went to bed that night, but my fingertip was still stained red just below the surface of the skin. I stared at it in the moonlight for a long while, thinking about the way my father had been treated that afternoon, the respect and fear I saw in the eyes of those around us as we walked from shop to shop. They denied him nothing; on the contrary, they went out of their way to ensure he had everything he wanted. If what my father said was true, and it was our pure blood that made us so special, surely that meant that I, too, would be treated thus when I was an adult.


The idea was a thrilling one.


I fell asleep cradling my hand against my chest, feeling vaguely sorry for those whose blood was inferior to my own. The step from pity to contempt was a small one, small enough even for a child to take.

Answer: Sometimes, they are one and the same. (Some dialogue taken directly from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)


"Lucius? What's wrong?"


Narcissa's voice was an echo in the background as my arm caught fire. I stood up so abruptly my chair overturned behind me.


"Lucius! What is it?"


My lungs were constricting from the sudden lack of oxygen as I tore at my shirt sleeve with trembling fingers. The fabric shredded and fell away, revealing a patch of skin so swollen and tender that the very air swirling around it added another layer to my agony. I yanked the tattered remnants of my sleeve up to my elbow and stared down at my forearm.


My Mark was black.


"My God." Narcissa's gasp was warm against my ear, her fingers ice cold where they stroked tentatively across my boiling flesh. Hissing, I jerked my arm away. "What does it mean?"


But we both knew. It had been thirteen years since the Mark had last burned like a brand, but neither of us had forgotten what it meant.


"Get my robes and mask," I snapped at the hovering house-elf. "Now!" A loud crack signaled its haste to carry out my orders.


"What will you tell him?" Her voice was barely a whisper, but I could still hear her fear.


My bowels turned to water. "I don't know."


The elf returned with another crack, and my mind spurred back into action. I ripped the robes from its arms and hastily pulled them over my head. The mask felt foreign in my hands.


"Lucius, I --"


I disapparated before she had a chance to finish her sentence.


***


My first thought as I re-appeared beside a crumbling gravestone was that I was a fool. Surely the inconceivable could not have happened. The Dark Lord could not possibly have returned. I'd allowed some ridiculous trick to interrupt my meal and send me into a panic when neither had been necessary. A trap, most likely, perhaps even set by Aurors. I should have known better.


The fear began to recede, anger tinged with curiosity as to precisely whose power had set my Mark aflame rushing in to take its place. I was reaching inside my robe, preparing to draw my wand, when a whoosh sounded behind me and Macnair appeared. Even in the dim light of the moon, I could see that his face was white as a sheet.


We stared at each other for a moment, and then Macnair slowly turned his head. A silent shadow stood waiting for us in the clearing beyond.


Macnair's pale face grew impossibly paler, and I felt the blood draining from my own. My hand was shaking as I lowered my mask.


Then something drove me to my knees, and my trouser legs grew damp as I crawled forward on the moist earth. "Master," I murmured, pressing the hem of his robe against my mask. Beneath, my lips were dry and felt as though they would crack as I spoke. I dared not look up at his face as I backed away slowly and took my place in the circle, my knees nearly too weak to support my weight.


"Welcome, Death Eaters," the Dark Lord murmured, and I finally gathered the courage to face my Lord. The sight was a horrible one; he seemed more snake than man. I shivered and tried to straighten my shoulders, act as though I weren't afraid, though my heart was pounding so loudly I was sure they could hear it in the small village beyond.


"Thirteen years... thirteen years since last we met. Yet you answer my call as though it were yesterday. We are still united under the Dark Mark, then! Or are we?" He lifted his head and gave a great exaggerated sniff. "I smell guilt. There is a stench of guilt upon the air."


Across the circle, a hulking shape I knew to be Goyle shifted uneasily on his feet, but no one spoke. The only sound came from a pitiful figure huddled on the ground, a glistening pool of blood puddled around its middle.


"I see you all, whole and healthy, with your powers intact - such prompt appearances! - and I ask myself... why did this band of wizards never come to the aid of their master, to whom they swore eternal loyalty?"


The figure on the ground rolled onto its back, and I realized with a pang of disbelief that it was Pettigrew. I stifled the gasp that struggled to escape my throat. My God. How many resurrections had taken place on this night?


"And I answer myself," the Dark Lord continued in a voice so low I had to strain my ears to hear it, "they must have believed me broken, they thought I was gone. They slipped back among my enemies, and they pleaded innocence, and ignorance, and bewitchment..."


My heart froze in my chest. He knew. My Master knew of my lies, my bribes, my traitorous renunciation. We had all betrayed him, denied our allegiance and publicly scoffed at his name to save ourselves from a lifetime in Azkaban, only to meet a worse fate in this moonlit graveyard a decade later.


We were, every one of us, dead men.


The Dark Lord continued to speak, and though I heard every word none of it made any sense. I swayed on my feet as he tortured Avery under the Cruciatus, stared numbly as he rewarded the sobbing Pettigrew with a hand of gleaming silver, all the while aching for Severus and Narcissa and Draco, knowing I would never see them again.


And then suddenly, he was standing before me. The stench of his stale breath filtered through my mask.


"Lucius, my slippery friend," he whispered, and a thrill of horror swept over me. Every hair on the back of my neck stood on end. "I am told that you have not renounced the old ways, though to the world you present a respectable face. You are still ready to take the lead in a spot of Muggle-torture, I believe? Yet you never tried to find me, Lucius... Your exploits at the Quidditch World Cup were fun, I daresay... but might not your energies have been better directed toward finding and aiding your master?"


"My Lord, I was constantly on the alert," I lied swiftly. Could he see how I was trembling? Was he reading my thoughts as I spoke? Seeing my betrayal written as plainly as words on a page? "Had there been any sign from you, any whisper of your whereabouts, I would have been at your side immediately, nothing could have prevented me -"


"And yet you ran from my Mark, when a faithful Death Eater sent it into the sky last summer?" he said lazily, and I closed my mouth with a snap. "Yes, I know all about that, Lucius. You have disappointed me..."


The words closed around my heart like an icy fist.


"You have disappointed me, Regulus."


Black's screams died abruptly as the Dark Lord lowered his wand.


"My Lord..." he gasped, trying to roll over onto his back, but the Dark Lord silenced him with a glare.


"Tell me again what you heard, Regulus." His voice was soft and patient, but the rest of us knew Black's lifespan could now be measured in minutes.


Regulus choked and spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground. "The woman... the... the Seer... she said, 'The one... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born -" another retching cough "- born as the seventh month dies...'" The words trailed off, and Black hung his head. His hair was so long that the ends trailed through the blood, painting a grisly portrait on the ground beneath him.


"And then what happened?" my Master urged quietly.


"I... I was discovered, my Lord. The innkeeper found me and... and threw me out of the building."


The Dark Lord straightened and gazed down at Regulus with an imperious glint coloring his eyes. "There was more?"


Black nodded, and a sob echoed through the chamber.


"Then you have failed me."


Black's body convulsed in a violent shiver, and he tried to raise himself up on his hands and knees. "My Lord," he said, falling back down onto his belly. He reached out one hand in fruitless supplication. "Forgive me. I -"


"Avada Kedavra."


*"You have disappointed me, Lucius."*


Black's transgression was mild compared to what I had done.


A plea for forgiveness trembled on my lips. A heartbeat before I uttered it, I realized it would do no good, and with a great effort I managed to swallow it. Let me die a man, at least. Let it be swift.


The Dark Lord examined me closely for a long moment before he spoke again. "I expect more faithful service in the future."


My breath whooshed out of me with a suddenness that made my head swim. The atmosphere inside my mask became thick and humid with my relief. "Of course, my Lord, of course. You are merciful. Thank you."