Title: Names

Authoress: Lady Domino

Rating: T

Summary: It's the Summer after Sixth Year. Draco Malfoy's just quietly living in his manor trying to pretend the outside world no longer exists when an unexpected visitor drops in. The thing is, this visitor didn't plan on being there either. But he needs help or all hope for the future will be lost.

Warnings: Strong violence, language, death.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters, they belong to J. K. Rowling. The Harry Potter films belong to Warner Bros. I am not making any money off of this and I write with the sole intention to entertain. However, any characters that appear which are not in the books or films are mine, and should not be plagiarised.

A/N: Yeah, this is quite a confusing, plunge into the action, first chapter. All will be explained in later chapters, when everybody is finally safe and has time for talking.

Decisions

I eventually found him in the kitchen. Curled up in the corner, on the floor, with his back against the sink. His shirt all mussed up and his wrist dripping with what looked like blood. He was small and shivering. I couldn't stop my lip curling. And then the questions started. How? I asked myself. How could you have come to this? What had Voldemort done to reduce that proud Gryffindor I knew to the creature in my kitchen? He looked vulnerable, like when I first saw him at the beginning of the First Year. Before the mask was donned and the façade raised. Where's your shield, Potter? Where's the brave, mighty Harry Potter?

…Gone. And all that was left was this. A poor trade indeed.

None of the house elves were near him. They left him alone, working at the other end of the kitchen. Doubtless he didn't want me to see him. Too bad. I wanted to ask some questions. Like why he was still alive. I crept forward to him.

"Potter?" A long pause. Then-

"Go to hell, Malfoy."

Now that was rude. Here he was, in my house, and still he insulted me. I walked closer to him, so that I was standing high above him. He was hunched, his arms wrapped around his knees. Trembling.

"What did they do to you?" No answer. Fine. Then I'd force one from him. "I heard your screams from upstairs," I snapped provocatively. "You were kicking up an unholy racket." I waited for the Gryffindor pride to lash out, waited for him to try and hex me. And waited. And waited. But he didn't move. Now that I looked at him I couldn't see his wand at all. No doubt they'd taken it away. Father (newly escaped from Azkaban and more pissed off than Professor Snape on a bad day) and the Dark Lord were upstairs in father's study. Maybe Potter's wand was up there too. Why'd they let him walk away? They must have known he was going nowhere. When were they coming after him again? When were they going to finish it?

I glanced at his left wrist. I had been right - it was bleeding, scarlet rivulets oozing onto the floor. A deep cut. A fresh cut. There was a knife on the floor next to him. Bloodstained too. Well he was still alive, so if he'd tried to kill himself by cutting his wrists then he must have bottled out of actual suicide. I snorted in disgust. Typical Potter reaction. Do the heroic thing – kill yourself before Voldemort gets you. But then, this is Harry Potter we are talking about, and his willpower is legend. One of the few, the very, very few to defy the Dark Lord's Imperious spell. If he had really meant to kill himself he would have succeeded. He'd cut himself for another reason. I reached down and lifted his wrist, careful not to get blood on my freshly manicured nails. He tried feebly to pull away.

I turned his hand over, palm upwards, and recoiled from what I saw. I knew now why he had been hacking at his own arm, and it made me feel sick. The Dark Mark. Burned black onto his skin, shining through the blood. Burned dark as it was on my own skin, a hideous tattoo. I remembered the unholy agony as I was branded, the horror and feeling of violation. The Dark Lord was the only one who knew how to place his mark. He must have put it there on Potter. Why? To humiliate his enemy? To cause Potter pain? (I remembered all too well the many, many sleepless nights I spent, tormented by the fire on my wrist). Or was it placed there to brand him as dead? The Dark Lord could hardly shoot his Mark into the sky above Malfoy manor after killing Potter here. People would notice. People we could do without noticing. There were still Aurors out there who could cause us inconveniences. Wizards would notice. So maybe he'd burnt the mark on the boy instead.

I let the arm fall back down to Potter's side and wondered what to do. The correct thing would be to leave him here for my dear Father to find. Maybe to watch as they killed him. A shiver ran through me. Despite my words, despite my act, I had never ever relished suffering quite like my family does. I failed to kill Dumbledore, and in those moments I realised that I did not wish to murder at all, that I despised the Dark Lord for his need to destroy. There had to be other ways. But he was the most powerful wizard around, and defying him would only result in my own death. So I crawled back to him, and apologised and grovelled. And he let me live. He let Mother and Father live too. He punished us all, yes, but he was surprisingly merciful. Needless to say, the Malfoys were no longer his favourite family. Not by a long shot. It made me wonder why he had brought Potter here at all. And now I wanted to stop him from killing the one person in the world who I would gladly see scream and writhe. Well, after his filthy blood traitor friend or maybe the know-it-all mudblood. God, they pissed me off, despising me; worms crawling at my foot and yet looking down on me. What the hell was I thinking? I was thinking of rescuing Harry Potter. Uurggh. The words sound wrong, don't they? And it would mean defying him. Yet that was what I wanted to do, more than anything else in the world, and, much as I will never admit it, I have a smidgeon of admiration for anyone with the guts to stand up to Voldemort. I couldn't just let him die.

I glanced around, checked that no one was watching, then took a towel from one of the house elves and wrapped his wrist in it. Then I pulled him upright.

"Stop it, Malfoy. Just leave me alone." His voice was hoarse from screaming.

"Shut up and move." I ignored his protests as I draped his dirty halfblood arm around my shoulder, resolving to have a shower later. Then I paused. Where to take him? If Father came looking for Potter and couldn't find him then he'd assume that someone had helped the boy. He'd probably check my room. I thought hard, and then started dragging him towards the wine cellar. It was dark down there, and I could hide him behind the racks of rich Claret and dark Beaujolais.

I dumped him on the dusty ground and hissed "Stay here and be quiet." He nodded drunkenly. Then I raced up to the kitchen, took the bloodstained knife to the sink and washed it personally, checked myself in the mirror, shuddered at the way my hair had become ruffled, nipped upstairs and dived onto my lifesaving pots of hair gel. It took five minutes to style my hair so that I looked like I had done nothing more strenuous than turn the pages of a book. A personal best. Let's see. We'll put on a clean white shirt for the innocent look and perhaps a dash of Calvin Klein for the true Malfoy feel. My toilet completed, I sneered at the mirror for practice, and then sauntered towards the conservatory. And stopped. No, I couldn't act like nothing had happened. The Dark Lord would want to know where Potter was. No way could I lie to him. I froze in indecision, cursing. If they found the boy hidden then they'd know I'd tried to help him. And he couldn't spend the rest of his life lying behind a wine rack. I had to get him away, far away from Malfoy Manor. But to do that I needed time. Then it hit me.

You know Hogwarts stairways occasionally move around? Yeah, well, big deal. Our stairways actually transfigure themselves. Into the oddest things too (imagine finding a rose garden where you expected an oak staircase to be). It's easy enough to fix, but it takes time. It would buy me time. Another little thing about Malfoy Manor staircases – they transfigure particularly if they feel dirty. It's a kind of self-cleaning mechanism. I raced down to the kitchens, elbowed an elf aside and, grimacing, picked up a handful of cold, slimy potato skins. Threw them onto the stairs. Repeated the move. Come on, come on! I picked up a third handful, but it was unnecessary. The staircase shuddered and then there was a pop! The archway which had been at the foot of the staircase was now covered by a portcullis. I kid you not. As in a medieval iron grid with pointy bits at the bottom. And behind that? A dark shaft. The stairs had transfigured into nothing. There was just an angled drop. Step this way, Voldemort…

But time was sliding away at a frightening rate. What the hell were Father and the Dark Lord doing? And how much longer did I have? Father would not be stopped for more than a few minutes by a transfigured staircase. He dealt with them everyday. I gathered all the house elves together and put on my most frightening voice.

"Right, I am giving you lot an order. You will not disobey it, as I am your master." Several of them shifted nervously and one wrung her hands underneath her pillowcase.

"Yes, master Malfoy," they chorused.

"You will tell no one that you have seen Potter," I intoned, speaking slowly and clearly so that not one of the thick fools could possibly misunderstand me. "If anyone, no matter how powerful, asks where he is, you will say that you don't know. Understood?" One elf blew his nose and gave me a contrite look when I glared.

"Yes, master Malfoy," the numbskulls replied, eyes glazed.

"And you won't tell anyone I told you not to tell."

"Yes, master Malfoy."

"And you won't tell anyone I just told you not to tell them I told you not to-" I stopped myself. Their brains would probably explode trying to comprehend that, and father did keep complaining about how hard it was to find decent servants. In fact, as soon he was out of Azkaban the first thing he had done was vent his temper on any elf unfortunate enough to displease him in the tiniest way. Trinky was Crucioed for making the coffee too strong and Floxy was Imperiused into drowning himself in the washing up for breaking one of Father's port glasses.

Turning back towards the doorway I felt a tremor of horror as I saw Father's shadow stretching towards me. He was coming down the stairs. And not alone, either! I could hear a high, cold laugh, perhaps at something Father had said. Quickly I grabbed an apple from the fruit-bowl on a sideboard and bit into it, almost choking on my fear.

"He came this way, I'm sure." Father's voice boomed through the kitchen. A second later he strode through the door, followed by another man, whose very appearance rooted me to the spot.

Every time I see Lord Voldemort I feel I would be lucky to escape alive. No one could look like that, and not be utterly evil. I was frozen, gripping the apple so hard that my nails dug into it and the juice spread across my hand. This was the creature that had murdered so many wizards. The creature who had tried, yet failed to murder Potter as a baby. Who had returned just over two years ago, and tried to kill Potter, and failed again. I had once questioned whether one person could be capable of all Father said he had done. Now I was wiser, now I knew, just by looking at Voldemort, that he was.

He was tall, taller than any of us, yet skeletally thin; emaciated like he hadn't eaten for weeks. His skin was deathly white, as if he had never ever seen sunlight, and his eyes were an insane red. I saw a unicorn once, with rabies. Father and some of his Deatheater friends were baiting it, and its eyes were just like the Dark Lord's own crimson, mad gaze. Those eyes glared suspiciously around the large kitchen and settled on me; the Dark Lord's gaze pinned me to the wall.

"Draco, we're looking for someone. Perhaps you've seen him?" Father asked. I tried to look innocent, wondering why I was covering up for someone I really hated. Because I didn't actually want to see him die, that's why.

"Who, Father?" I still held the forgotten apple loosely in my hand. Voldemort answered before my Father could.

"Harry Potter," he hissed. The way he said the name was fascinating. His voice betrayed his complete fixation with the boy.

"Potter?" I mumbled, and managed a characteristic sneer. No one intimidates a Malfoy! "I haven't seen him since school broke up." I allowed myself a look of disgust. "Please tell me he's not in the house!"

"He is," father snapped. "Are you sure you have seen nothing?"

"No," I answered, my voice becoming stronger. Lord Voldemort's gaze was still turning me inside out.

"Are you sure, Master Malfoy?" he murmured.

"Yes!"

"Then why," he said softly, red eyes narrowing, "do I smell a lie?"

"A lie?" I practically choked. I was about to protest but my father got there first.

"My Lord," he said smoothly, "I have brought up my son according to our standards, and have often seen proof of how much he hates Potter. Believe me, he is not lying. Potter is not here."

"Ah, but do I, Lucius? Do I believe you?" Voldemort asked softly.

"Have you ever had reason not to?" Father said, a shade sharply. It was clear that his pride was battling with his fear of and servitude to Voldemort. He was obviously extremely offended by his lord's questioning. Good. I was sick of seeing him crawl.

Voldemort held his gaze, and then dropped it lazily turning his attention back to me.

"Forgive me Lucius. After doubting you for thirteen years – I sometimes have to remind myself of your undying loyalty." The sneer in the words was very clear. Then he shrugged. "Yet, I have eyes, and you are right. The boy isn't here."

"As I said, Malfoys don't lie, my lord. And, should you still doubt my son's word, then feel free to question my house elves. Sparky!" Father clapped his hands imperiously and a small elf hurried over from behind a chopping board, wiping tomato juice from her hands on a cloth.

"That won't be necessary, Lucius," Voldemort said softly.

"No, no, I insist," father replied with a hard glare. "Just as proof my son is telling the truth. Sparky," he addressed the elf, "Have you seen a boy come into this kitchen?"

"Y-yes, Master s-sir," she stuttered, eyes wide with fear. My insides turned to ice. I'd forbidden them all to talk! Father raised an eyebrow and Voldemort's face lit up with interest.

"Who?" father demanded coldly. She darted a terrified glance at me, then raised a trembling finger and pointed in my direction.

"Y-young m-master, sir." I breathed again. Voldemort's face lost its triumphant look, to be replaced with the characteristic sneer.

"Sparky, have you seen anyone else?" father asked impatiently.

"N-no, M-m-master, sir," she whimpered, still staring fearfully at me. Then, to my horror, she burst into loud sobs, burying her face in her pillowcase.

"What's wrong with it?" Voldemort demanded. An expression of distaste slithered across his snake-like face. I stepped forward.

"She's unhappy for breaking her promise, sir. I made the house elves promise not to say they'd ever seen me in the kitchen. I sneak in occasionally for food. Sparky broke her promise," I said harshly. She gave a loud wail and rocked backwards and forwards.

"I see," Voldemort's face was a mask of disappointment and disgust for the elf hiccuping at his feet. "Well, Lucius, shall we look elsewhere?" As he spoke I felt a gentle probing at my mind. NO! Aunt Bellatrix's lessons flooded back to me. Brick wall. My mind is a brick wall. You can't get through; no bricks are loose. Lazily the Dark Lord withdrew from my mind. I wasn't fooled; it was not because I had blocked him but because he couldn't be bothered to spend time breaking into my thoughts. He thought I wasn't worth it. Fine, that worked for me.

"Certainly, my lord," father said, giving me a look which said that this was most definitely not over. He'd probably ask mother about my behaviour. Still, I didn't have much to worry about there. She was generally too stoned to remember that she had a son, let alone what I was eating. My father – the power mad accolyte of an insane halfblood dark lord. My mother – married to a man she no longer loved, traumatised by my failure to kill Dumbledore and the very real possibility of me dieing at Lord Voldemort's hand for it. She'd withdrawn over the past few months and eventually found solace in strange potions and white powders. And me, Draco, caught in the middle. The Malfoy proud of his family, but not proud of his family, if that makes sense. We had a mighty heritage, a mighty name. But the current Malfoys? Well, we could only improve from here.