More male characters who are interested in their mother's legacy. As a trope there's a lot of sons and daughters who follow in the father's footsteps and there's yes, girls who honor their mother, ect. But let's have more dudes who are like. Stumbling on their mom's secret fairy cottage or some shit. And they're like aight gotta make the tea

This has been stuck in my head for months. Also apparently I never interacted with this post when I first saw it so I had to plumb the depths of page 2 of Google to find it again.

And then it combined in my mind with the classic coming-of-age fantasy story of a mundane kid developing a birthmark with Powers ™ when they reach a certain age.

Now I am ✨obsessed✨ with the idea of Draco inheriting a surprise legacy, not from the Malfoy line he's identified with and worn proudly, but as the last heir of the Black blood. I don't know what it would be, probably something Dark and secretive, and I don't know what I'd do with it except have Narcissa whisk him away in the middle of the night to say "this is what is happening to you and why and why you must never tell anyone", but I need it.

just pondering some ripples.....

AU core change: Lucius was Imperiused for the duration of the first Wizarding War.

-> Draco was not born out of love, but at best coercion, and at worst horrific abuse.

-> Lucius doesn't want anything to do with "his" family and is constantly uneasy around them, so is very distant.

-> Narcissa could go either way, but if we go with the frankly more dramatic "the child is an unpleasant reminder" route, she would have zero compunction cutting herself off from him and basically having nothing to do with her "family".

-> The raising of the child is left almost exclusively to the house elf, creating a more "Regulus & Kreacher" situation.

-> Draco wouldn't have spent much time around people. He'd have well-paid tutors, of course, but other than that he'd be isolated. Spending his whole life alone in the manor with occasionally Dobby for company. Sent out to do his school shopping by himself. Probably tried acting out for attention when he was little, but by school age is completely trying to be perfect and self-sufficient.

-> Instead of being a cocky, social, extroverted showoff, first-year Draco is a withdrawn, serious, lonely semi-pariah. (Having previously committed to abusive Imperiused Lucius for the backstory, it follows he would have been known as a brutal Death Eater with horrific crimes to his name, and it can be assumed most Wizards would still assume he was lying. Including, perhaps, the children of the other Death Eaters [i.e. his whole dorm except Blaise, who is an asshole anyway], whom he wants nothing to do with.) Probably doesn't know the last time he smiled.

---> Dumbledore as a Legilimens is aware that Lucius is telling the truth, and testimony like that is why he's fully pardoned, but that's not going to stop the rumor mill. Most people probably just assume he bribed his way free, if anything.

-> Instead of the "wrong sort" conversation with Harry in Madam Malkin's, Harry and Ron see Draco shopping on his own and Ron spills the exposition about his evil family and how Slytherins are bad.

---

Things which don't change: Draco's still a "the Hat doesn't even have to touch his head" Slytherin, and he's still desperately needy for approval. It's just that now instead of it being because he idolises his parents it's because he's got a huge gaping hole which is currently filled with little more than internalised self-loathing.

He's also probably still mean as hell. But not in the mean-girl-social-bullying kind of way like normal, but in a defensive and thoroughly vicious way to keep people away. Full on mistrustful hedgehog. Lack of socialisation means he doesn't talk to people except to push them away.

---

-> Draco doesn't teacher's-pet with Snape. He wants nothing to do with him, just like all the Death Eaters' kids.

-> Not that I'm saying Draco would get to the Mirror of Erised, but if he did, and his vision was a happy family? Man, that's just heartbreaking.

Year 2:

Basically the whole plot of Chamber of Secrets falls apart a bit if Lucius isn't playing the role of moustache-twirling villain...

-> Lucius would have no reason to send the Diary Horcrux to Hogwarts. In fact, he might very well not even be aware of what he has (even less aware than canonically). I can definitely see it still being with him, having either been entrusted to his father and then inherited, or else given to him under the Imperius to be vaulted for safekeeping.

-> Dobby would have no reason to try to keep Harry Potter away from Hogwarts. Or know Harry Potter at all.

-> Say Lucius did have it. Perhaps he discovered it and tasked Dobby with disposing of it. Or, perhaps Draco found it himself. An isolated loner kid who has a lot of problems, who finds a supportive sentient journal that wants to listen? He'd be tantalising fresh meat.

tl;dr this AU sounds like a good excuse to write sad Draco with the Chamber of Secrets diary and coming to the "I don't actually want to kill people" epiphany when he's 12, not 17

..........About this time is when I get distracted.

It was almost pathetic, how easy it was to train Draco by rewarding him with minor acts of affection or approval. The blame for that, of course, lay entirely with his callous, repressed parents -- Lucius who would never say that he was proud no matter what he accomplished, Narcissa whose love was fierce but its expression fiercely conditional, both wielded as weapons to browbeat him into an enthusiastically dutiful child so starved for their attention he would become a Death Eater at barely sixteen because he thought it was what they would want.

All Snape had to do to break him over the course of a single summer was actually give him the barest taste of the affection his parents withheld.

He hadn't even actually meant to do it, at first. Voldemort had sent Draco with him after Dumbledore's death the same way he had sent Wormtail the previous summer, but unlike with with Wormtail it wasn't about monitoring him; it was about the Malfoys. Draco's disappointing performance over the course of the last school term had barely bought him his life, and Voldemort wanted to demonstrate just how very much disdain he was to be regarded with; he was every bit as cowardly as Wormtail, but he wouldn't even kill, so there was no use for him except as leverage against his parents.

And, of course, the punishment for Narcissa, for daring to try to subvert his orders. The message was clear, without ever having to be spoken aloud: You trusted Severus with your son last year, did you not? Then you should have no problem entrusting him to him now.

He had intended only to teach him some humility -- he had some fondness for Draco, having known him since he was an infant, but he didn't dare actually show him any real kindness or mercy; he had a role to play, even inside his own home, because Draco was not nearly Occlumens enough to be trusted with any break in the façade. Anything Draco saw, it must be assumed Voldemort would as well.

And Malfoy entitlement did grate. He sensed that Draco assumed this would be another one of the privileges his name and status had afforded him his whole life, probably without even realising that was what it was; he thought he would be shuttled off somewhere safe and out of the way while other people got their hands dirty. Two months of demeaning chores and living rough would do good for his character.

Draco resisted at first, because he had pride. He was accustomed to living without his parents' attention and he didn't want to accept a demeaning compliment for properly washing dishes.

But after a couple weeks, Draco was reaching the breaking point and started fighting back, and Snape laid out in perfectly brutal terms exactly how expendable he was, what he had to look forward to, and why he was there. When he came back a couple hours later to find him crying, Draco accepted a hand on his shoulder, and he no longer had the spirit to fight, it seemed.

By the end of the summer, he would actually debase himself for praise or pets. Taking his seat around the Malfoy dining room table for the last meeting with Voldemort and the rest of his policy makers before the start of the school term, he tapped the arm of his chair, and Draco sat obediently on the floor beside him, eyes down, perfectly aware of what he was doing and embarrassed, but no longer too proud to do it. He ran his fingers through Draco's hair and impassively met Lucius' seething stare. Draco leaned into his touch. Really, Draco was probably better off with him, anyway.