The night was sweltering and dark, the air thick and oppressive. Black clouds, pregnant with rain, boiled across the sky, pushed by a scorching wind that crashed through the trees bare branches, whipping them into a frenzy of rattling limbs. Thunder rumbled ominously in the distance, followed by the sharp smell of ozone. The darkness itself seemed to be holding its breath just waiting for the sky to open and unleash the fury of the storm.

Oblivious to the tempest brewing around him, a lone figure wondered deeper into the woods, his steps muffled by the thick carpet of dead leaves covering the forest floor. Light from the wand he held aloft cast a circle of pale light that barely penetrated the inky blackness. However he did not need the feeble light cast by the piece of wood in his hand, he had traveled this path many times. Draco Malfoy had taken to walking this trail about five years ago, a few months after the final battle.

Once the wizarding world had finally grasped the fact that the war was finally and truly over, they had gone after everyone and anyone with ties to the Dark Lord with a vengeance, the Malfoys having the misfortune of being one of the first families targeted. Only a few days after the battle, the family had been torn from their beds by aurors in the middle of the night without a word of explanation and taken before the wizard high council. There was no trial, Draco's father Lucius had promptly been returned to Azkaban to serve a life sentence, and the Malfoy's had been stripped of all their wealth and property.

Ripped from their life of wealth and privilege, the Malfoy's had been forced to earn their own living. That and the fact that Lucius had died only a few months after his imprisonment, had caused Draco's mother to slowly go mad, leading her to eventually take her own life. Having been abandoned by all his friends, he was left poor, alone, and with no one in the world.

Draco now stumbled deeper into the woods, reeking of the fire whiskey he used to try dampen his pain, fill the emptiness that consumed him. To say he was bitter was an understatement; he was enraged, filled with a hatred that burned in his blood.

" Damn you all! Damn everyone!!" He slurred his steps becoming erratic.

" Did you here me?" he stopped in his tracks, punctuating his words with stabs of his wand, " Did you bloody hear me? Damn you all! I swear to you, to you all someday you are going to pay for what you did!!"

With that he promptly slumped to the ground on his knees and retched, retched until nothing but bile came, his body racked by dry heaves. After a few minutes he wiped the sick from his mouth and rolled over staring at nothing, his heart full of hatred and anger.

"I heard you little one." A voice responded from the darkness.

Draco pulled himself into a sitting position, looking blearily out into the dark. Raking a hand through his greasy white blonde hair, he tried to steady his spinning head.

"My poor little one, you have so much anger, so much pain." The silky voice sounded again, followed by a soft laugh. "I have been watching you my little dragon. I have seen you night after night stumbling through these woods with hatred in your heart, vengeance in you soul."

The voice seemed to be coming from everywhere, its tone both soft and alluring. It seemed to caress his skin, twining about his body, causing the hairs on his neck to rise. Climbing to his feet he searched the dark woods, looking for the owner of the voice, but the alcohol coursing through his veins made him unsteady and he sank back to his knees.

"Poor little Prince, look what you do to yourself, I had thought you stronger." The soft mocking laugh drifted around him followed by a sigh. "I guess I must have misjudged you then. You are like all the others, feeble and weak…. I had such….."

" I am NOT weak!!!" He screamed, surging to his feet, spittle flying from his lips. Enraged he whipped about in a circle on unsteady feet, his body heaving with his anger. " You would do well to remember that! I come from a long line of noble people, great…."

"You come from a line that was weak, from men and women who have no strength, who only followed those who did so they would be protected taken care of!!! They were nothing but cowards!!!" The voice spat back full of venom.

With a scream of rage Draco began throwing curses left and right. Lighting flashed across the sky, followed by a clap of thunder seeming to echo his rage. He continued to toss spells about until a hastily thrown curse rebounded off of a tree sending him sprawling to the ground in a tangle of tattered robes.

"Oh how the mighty have fallen." The voice mocked, "It's quite sad really."

"You are the one who is a coward!!" Panting Draco once again stumbled to his feet " You don't even have the courage to face me, instead you hide in the dark…….What are you afraid?" he sneered.

Draco knew as soon as the words had left his mouth he had made a grave mistake. A feral growl echoed from the dark and soon he found himself tossed through the air, slamming hard into the rough bark of a tree. His jaw ached from the blow, and he felt something warm began to trickle down his cheek. The forest plunged into darkness, his wand having flown from his hand with the force of the blow. His insides churning he began to search franticly on hands and knees for his lost wand, his only source of protection.

"I can smell your fear you know, it smells sweet." The voice cooed

"Who is afraid now little one?"

He felt relief course through his body when his hands closed around the smooth familiar shape of his wand. He managed to choke out the spell through cracked lips, wild eyes searching his surroundings. Anger began to seep through his veins again, brining with it renewed bravado.

"Show yourself!"

With a soft laugh his tormentor stepped out from behind a knarled oak and Draco felt a gasp escape his lips at the sight. The woman was beautiful beyond measure, a lush curved figure framed by waves of dark hair. She wore nothing but her body seemed to by clothed in moonlight, her alabaster skin emitting a soft glow. Amethyst eyes gazed out at him from underneath a feather of coal black lashes staring at him with unnerving intensity. Her face was all angels and lush crimson lips. She seemed to glide across the ground toward him, making not a sound, and against his better judgment Draco found himself reaching towards her.

"Finally we meet face to face my little Dragon, oh but my you are all I hoped for." She purred as she continued to advance crimson lips curling in a smile.

Having begun to inch forward on his knees, Draco was snapped back to reality when a thorn pierced his robe and dug into his shin. Instinct overrode lust, and he found himself snatching his hand back and stumbling backwards. Something wasn't right, what was this angel doing in the middle of the woods naked. Obviously she had been following him, and from what she said it had not been the first time. Suddenly he felt trapped, cornered with no where to go.

"Those are all good questions little one, even in your drunken stupor your mind can still be keen." Tilting her head to one side she regarded him, seeming to make up her mind about something she continued "I think I will grace you with some answers. You see I have taken to, how you say, haunting this forest as of late. I am always looking for new ways to amuse myself and these woods are always crawling with the less desirable. You can imagine my surprise when I came upon you. Nothing is more seductive then a soul in pain, especially one so impure." With that she gave and evil grin, the light from his wand glinting offs her straight white teeth.

"I think that is the only reason I didn't kill you right away." She stated matter of factly giving a slight shrug " You intrigued me. I began to follow you every night, in a way I became obsessed. I was addicted to all the anger and pain swirling through your mind. The thoughts of revenge and death. Each night I found it harder and harder not to approach you. Well that is until tonight."

Draco's heart was racing, his mind unable to grasp what he was hearing, seeing. Suddenly the air seemed too thick, the shadows to dark. His head was throbbing and he felt like his legs would go out from underneath him at any instant.

"You're crazy, who, what the hell are you?"

"I ,my little prince, am your way to achieve what your heart truly desires. The ways to make all those pay that have caused you so much pain. I am vengeance."

Before he could respond she was upon him. He found himself caught in a grip of steel, his arms twisted behind him, his body locked against her chest. She wrenched the wand from his grasp, pulling him closer to her body.

"Soon you won't need those foolish things." she purred, her breath cool against his ear "You will only need what I give you."

He felt himself shudder as she ran her tongue up his neck, lingering on the wetness that still seeped from the gash on his head.

"Your Pureblood tastes no different you know, it is all the same, all as sweet." And with that she struck.

Draco felt pain spear through his body as her teeth ripped his flesh. She pulled deeply from his neck, causing every vessel in his body to scream. It was as if everything was being drawn up and out of him fighting all the way. She made small mewling noises as she fed easily swatting away his feeble attempts to dislodge her. Everything began to become hazy and soon all he could hear was the beating of his own heart, each pulse weaker then the last. Just when the darkness seemed as if it was going to overtake him, she flung him to the ground.

Lighting speared through the sky, illuminating the terrifying sight before him, she stood panting above him, eyes glowing red, and his own blood spilling form her mouth.

"You were as sweet as I could have wanted" she cooed settling to the ground beside his body. She idly drew a finger across the wound on his neck which still seeped blood.

"It is time for you to make a choice little one." she stated while painting her mouth with his blood. Groaning she slowly licked it off.

"Take the revenge you truly crave, or slip softly into oblivion. Which do you choose?"

Draco was too weak to move, his breath shallow, he could feel his life slipping away. It would be so easy to just let it all slip away and never have to face anything again. He sighed, happy with the thought of never feeling pain again when an unwanted image slipped across his minds eye. His mother kneeling, weeping, tears coursing down her cheeks as she clutched his father's hair ribbon. Then her lifeless eyes when he stumbled upon her dead in the chipped and dirty tub of the little flat that was the only thing they had been able to afford. Anger and grief surged through his body, spreading a fire through his quickly numbing limbs. His eyes snapped open, and chest heaving he breathed the words that would forever change him.

"I chose life, I chose death, I chose revenge."

With a throaty laugh the woman racked a sharp nail across her chest causing thick blood to well up and over her pale breast.

"Then drink my little one and it shall be yours."

Draco latched onto her breast and it was at that moment that the heavens chose to open, sending a torrent of rain crashing to the ground. It was almost as if they knew they were the only ones would weep for the loss of his life that night, and of what it would unleash.