No, he wouldn't give up being a Malfoy, though she was wrong in that he had actually contemplated it. Though she wouldn't know, because he never shared it with her. He'd never told her what he went through when his father killed himself. Nor when his father was sentenced to the Kiss. He'd simply stopped talking about family matters as much as possible.
He sighed and turned away then. The Ministry. He snorted. "I tried the Ministry, Mother. Two years ago. There's no place for a Death Eater, even a pardoned one." Turning back to her, he shrugged slightly. "I believe they told me I could do post room service specifically for the department of Muggle Relations."
He shook his head, "It doesn't take a job in the Ministry to know where the power is heading, Mother. The Weasleys are on the rise, and I've already started to," he took a breath here, bracing himself, "Attempt to be nice, attempt to force them to re-evaluate me.
"The political power is shifting so far so fast that it is the blood traitors and muggle lovers who will gain everything. I'm already appearing far more liberal than I ever could stomach. I've been regaining my network and expanding it. Unfortunately, given how poorly the nouveau riche play any games, the balls seemed like the most obvious way to force interaction in a context where even they would play nice.
"If you think they might have changed their views, especially given this new Muggle Integration," he sneered, "hogwash, then I'll go back to them and try again."
He refused to admit, even to himself, how difficult it was for him to offer to grovel before the Ministry. He'd never told his mother that he'd tried. It was easier to fall back on the entrepreneurship and claim it was his only idea. He didn't want to admit that after the Ministry, he hadn't even contemplated professional Quidditch trials with anything resembling sincerity. The curse breaking had been his third choice, a carefully concealed fact. Now, he would betray his own confidence, but only for his mother.