Chapter Text
And the sons shall pay for the sins of their fathers, even unto the third generation…
The words are ancient, the sentiment archaic… and the whole thing, Draco thinks, is just really fucking unfair.
In the post-Voldemort world, it isn’t enough that the Dark Lord is dead… and that the worst of his Death Eaters will die in Azkaban. It doesn’t matter that the term “Death Eater” is thrown around so casually as to have caught an alarming number of Slytherin House alumni and pureblood families in its snare… sometimes with no evidence of ever having associated with the Dark Lord or any of his followers.
The Greengrasses, who have always been outspoken against blood purity were labeled sympathizers, the Bulstrodes only escaped by reminding everyone they had a Muggle-born grandmother. Even the Weasleys, who until Weasel the Youngest married Hermione Granger, had never had a mixed marriage, might have gotten caught up in it if they hadn’t been card-carrying members of the Order of the Phoenix... with no wealth at all.
Because great fortunes were confiscated.
Draco is sure that if anyone bothered to check, they would find that not all of the confiscated money went into the Ministry coffers, but the post-Voldemort political opinion was far more about retribution… retaliation… revenge, than it was about accounting.
Because great fortunes were made.
Dolores Umbridge (who for all of the Dark Lord’s reign, was claiming kinship with the ancient pureblood Selwyn family and is now claiming to be Margaret Thatcher’s third cousin, once removed) cleverly turned the idea of—to use the polite term, reparations— into a very lucrative galleon-making scheme. With a few well-placed opinion pieces in the Daily Profit, she and her cohorts (lately of the Muggleborn Registration Committee, but who’s really keeping track?) reminded the good people of the Wizarding World that their children died at the hands of Death Eaters… while the children of the Death Eaters still walked free…
… never mind that they were children…
… never mind that most of them had never committed a single crime…
… never mind that some of them hadn’t even been born during the Dark Lord’s reign…
People who were in mourning channeled their grief into rage… and people who were hurting began to seek revenge.
A few laws, hastily-drafted and quickly-passed, and they got it.
The children of the Death Eaters and their sympathizers were remanded to the custody of the newly formed Reparations Company, Incorporated… for a period of time to be determined by the crimes of their parents. They were stripped of all legal rights—stripped of their very personhood—and placed in settings that would be most lucrative to the Company.
The truly young went to guardians who were tasked with keeping them alive until they were old enough to begin their reparations work.
In a farm… a factory… a mine too volatile for magic.
An escort service.
Draco was barely sixteen when he was forced into the Dark Lord’s service, and it was the twin mercies of his age and the self-righteous benevolence of Harry fucking Potter that saved him from a lifetime in Azkaban. Neither could save him from the Reparations Company, Incorporated.
It was decided that Draco, with his moonbeam hair, alabaster skin, and eyes like molten silver should spend his time working as a high-end prostitute.
A very high-end prostitute.
He is fucked in the most luxurious hotels by the highest-ranking members of the Ministry… the most illustrious of businessmen… the most impressive dignitaries. Once, even by a foreign prince.
At the moment, it’s the head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures who has him face down, arse up, on silk sheets.
Better silk, Draco tells himself, than stained and scratchy cotton. He even believes it—sort of. But sold is sold.
He moans appreciatively as the man thrusts into him… and tries to pretend that the man isn’t too sweaty… too hairy… too much smelling of stale garlic and expensive aftershave.
That it isn’t too painful.
“Oh, Cuthbert,” Draco says in a voice that is a practiced combination of throaty and breathy.
“You like it, baby?”
No. “Yes!”
He isn’t trying to hurt him, Draco thinks. He’s just… unconcerned. Or unaware, maybe. And it’s not like Draco can say.
They’ll cuddle after, and Cuthbert Mockridge will stroke his face and tell him how beautiful he is and ask him if he liked it, and Draco will lie so very prettily, and Mockridge will smile and promise to see Draco again soon.
It will be next Saturday. It always is.
And then Mockridge will heave himself out of bed to shower before going home to his wife. He will tell Draco that he’s booked the room for the night… that Draco should sleep… and Draco will because the bed is soft and warm, and so much better than the little cot he’s given by the Company. When he wakes, Mockridge will be gone, but breakfast will have been ordered, and Draco can take a leisurely, hot shower. There will be a tip for him on the nightstand, and it will be Sunday.
Sundays are the one thing that makes Draco’s life bearable.