Hey, I doubt any of will recognise this, but this is actually a repost of a story I started like a year ago but never finished. I got a few requests to keep going with it, and how could I say no? So here we are, the continuation has arrived. Pls. read and review, it's always appreciated.

Wind and sheets of rain whipped around the house, trying to find a gap in its thick stone walls. Thunder roared through the night sky, as the gale blew debris through the decrepit grounds. A crackle of lightening briefly illuminated the harrowing surrounds, and then the darkness returned. The three-storey Manor house's windows were being pelted with hailstones, but its occupants were unconcerned, a state that was not unusual for them.

The firelight flickered in the boys eyes, as he lay face down on the carpet, panting. His body had a light sheen of sweat covering it, but it had nothing to do with the heat that was emanating from the hearth. His blood pooled gently on the material as he moaned again, the figure above him viciously kicking him in the ribs, causing him to double up, protecting his injured side.

The dark figure moved towards the desk in the room, and opened one of the drawers with a creek. An object was removed from its depths, and held mockingly in front of the boy's eyes.

"Do you know what this is, boy?" the figure enquired.

"A cat o'nine-tails, sir," managed the prone figure, his eyes widening with fear.

"That's right," grinned the boy's father, as he flicked his wrist viciously, and his son screamed in agony as the skin was flayed off his back.

Scorpius Malfoy awoke in his four-poster bed, as the first lights of morning punctured the hangings of his bed. He groaned as he rolled over, suddenly jerking still in his bed, as he previous evening came back to his consciousness. Instinctively, he ran his hands over his body, wondering whether the scars from his previous evening's abuse were still present.

They never were, however, and this morning was no exception. No matter what vicious atrocities Draco Malfoy may have committed against his son, he was always sure to mend him afterwards. There could be no scars to prove the damage had occurred, and he always awoke after blacking out from the pain in his own bed. It was just the way things were. That was how the Malfoy family was now.

The Malfoy family had suffered after the war. Their money might have remained, but every shred of respectability and acceptance had been torn up and burned before their eyes. No indignity had been greater than his father and grandparents being forced to face a full court hearing, after the vicious laws from the previous war had been reinstated for the trial of suspected Voldemort followers.

Scorpius had been compelled to watch along with his mother, Astoria Greengrass, who had become Astoria Malfoy two months after the war was finished, as his father was held in a metal cage, with spikes preventing him from even breathing out to his full extent. Staring straight ahead, Draco had heard all the charges against him and he said not a word. His case had been delayed almost nine years as the evidence was gathered and the more serious trials for accused death-eaters were heard, and his five years in Azkaban had left him even more gaunt and sallow than nature had made him.

Finally, once all the evidence had been heard, a man, of no more than 27 had gotten to his feet, and had begun to speak. Immediately, Draco Malfoy had shouted at him, told him to stand down, that no man would speak on his behalf, but he was silenced. The man defended his father, speaking of Draco's unwillingness, of his forced complicity, and his unlucky lot in life. All through it, Draco had shaken furiously, unable to speak, but cutting himself on the vicious interior of his confines.

The man who had spoken for him was Harry Potter, and for Draco Malfoy, it was the largest wound his pride could have received. The 'Golden Boy', 'Saviour of the World', and most famously 'The Boy Who Lived,' had not only had Draco released on bail from his time in Azkaban so that he could go home to his wife, admittedly while under constant auror guard, but he had managed to have his almost certain conviction quashed.

Similarly, Harry Potter had spoken at the trials of his grandparents, which had been held the year previous, defending them, but in the process, taking away whatever honour and pride their existence had seen fit to leave them with. They had returned to Malfoy Manor as broken and bitter souls.

Draco's grandfather was the only one who had held out any hopes of restoring the family name. Lucius had desperately hung his hopes on his grandchild, and had taken him under his wing, teaching him everything he considered important to becoming a stately family once more. Needless to say, Scorpius' magical education had started as soon as he could grasp a wand.

Then he had gone to Hogwarts, and hope had begun to spring up in his young mind. He could see a path, a light as he boarded the train to the famous castle. It had lasted all of five minutes, before James Potter and his friends dragged him out into the corridor of the train and beat him to within an inch of his life.

He was sorted into Slytherin, but it made no difference. His house had all moved on, and he was like a disease to them, and everyone avoided him at all costs. James Potter, Fred Weasley and to a lesser extent, Teddy Lupin, made his life a living hell. After the first few occasions, he began to avoid the nurse altogether, as well. She had expressed her fury at him, refusing to believe his 'lies' about the bullying, and telling him to stop fighting.

The hope that had sprung up within him was crushed before it even had a chance to flower. And then, it happened. He'd arrived in the Great Hall, and all eyes were on him. Even the teaching staff, Professor McGonagall, the beloved headmistress, included, were all staring at him as if he was a piece of filth that they'd been unfortunate enough to step in.

The looks in and of themselves were nothing unusual, but the fact that the entire school were doing it was what made it so disconcerting. He had moved to the Slytherin table, and trying to ignore the staring faces; he'd picked up the paper, and then blanched, dropping it straight onto his toast.

Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, arrested in relation to a brutal triple homicide of muggle family.

That was the headline that shouted at him. Scorpius had run out of the hall, down to his common room, and collapsed onto his bed, and sobbed.

It was that Christmas that the beatings started. He clearly remembered the first one. They had returned from his grandfather's trial, where he had been sentenced to life imprisonment, and his father had simply dragged him into his study, and beaten him so badly he'd thought he was going to die.

It was not the last time, by any means.

Scorpius' life had spiralled down, further, if anyone could have believed it possible. He now dreaded both home and school. At home, his father beat him, taking pleasure from his only child's pain, and at school, it was not much different. After the muggle killings, James Potter had broken both his legs, and then made him invisible, gagged him, and left him in a corner of the dungeons. He'd fainted from the agony, come to in the middle of the night, and been forced to half drag himself to the hospital wing. Once again, the nurse, who Scorpius learned had lost two children to Death-Eaters in the war, grudgingly mended his broken bones.

Scorpius' only comfort was his studies. He had no acquaintances, let alone friends, and so was left with all the time that others spent socialising to study. Added to the fact that he was naturally very intelligent, and a supposed brilliant spell-caster, he made great strides in his education. He needed to; he had nothing else to live for.

In prison, his grandmother had passed away, the incarceration having weakened her already strained will to exist. Scorpius had been pulled out of school to attend the event at the Azkaban prison, at which only his father and mother had been present.

Astoria Greengrass was only Scorpius' mother by name. She knew everything that her husband did to their only son, but she sat in the drawing room of the house nearly all day every day, in a chair next to her husband, staring blankly into the fire, and drinking heavily. The house elves maintained her, as she drank herself into submission.

His father didn't work, he existed in a similar fashion, sleeping and drinking away his life. He also smoked huge cigars, as he relived history from his chair that was next to his wife's.

Scorpius pulled out his textbooks, spreading them on the bed, as his door creaked open. In wandered a house-elf, holding a tray.

"Master Malfoy, I have brought you some breakfast," squeaked the creature, as Scorpius smiled kindly, a rare occurrence in his current residence. Twinkie was his favourite house-elf of the three that his parents kept. She brought him breakfast in bed every morning, so he didn't risk running into his parents or even crossing their minds as they roused themselves from their alcohol induced stupor.

She pushed the tray onto the bedside table that made up one of the three pieces of furniture in his room, the other two being his bed and a very sparsely packed cupboard that contained his small collection of clothing. After she had pushed the tray onto the flat surface, she deposited a letter on his lap, and hung a suit bag over the end of his bed.

"Grandfather's funeral," groaned Scorpius, his eyes falling on the bag, before he noticed the letter. He was surprised at the piece of mail, it was heavier than usual, but since he was going into his final year, maybe they had extra information to convey. He knew it had to be from the school; he never received mail of any other kind.

He knew it wasn't an extended booklist, because he already owned everything that was on it, a virtue of having procured a copy, along with the library's copies of each of them. While the other staff may have refused to accept that Scorpius was as different as it was possible to be from his father, Madame Pince had been far more accommodating, especially after he'd given her a very abridged version of his circumstances, she had allowed him to borrow copies of school texts out for the entire year.

He neatly opened the letter, and emptied the contents out on his bed. As he suspected, there was a welcome letter for his final year, along with his booklist. The added weight, however, came in the form of a badge. He picked it up off the sheet on his bed, and turned it over.

HEAD BOY

That was the inscription. Head Boy. Scorpius swallowed, his eyes widening in disbelief. He dropped it like it had scalded him, and scrambled to find the accompanying letter. Surely it was a mistake. Surely no one in their right mind would have made him Head Boy. Albus Potter was going to kill him if it turned out he'd even received in error. His next thought was that it had to be a practical joke.

He located the letter, and read the top line. There, in neat handwriting, was his name. It was addressed to him. He read the whole page, and then threw it down on the bed in disgust. Whoever thought this was funny had a sick sense of humour, he thought to himself, shoving them both in his top draw, along with the handmade calendar, on which he was recording how many days left before the new year began. He was down to just two days remaining.