Draco's Prologue
My father's drunken slurs echoed off the pillars and through all the turrets of the Malfoy family summer home in Lille, France. Before we had left our home in England, I had overheard him telling my mother that if I were to ever become a proper Death-Eater, then he'd have to take me away from her "coddling" and teach me himself. We all knew what kind of "conditioning" he had in mind for me, as if the bruises along my back and arms weren't enough proof for anyone who bothered to notice. Perhaps nobody ever did… Of course my mother didn't fight his rule over the Malfoy family, and speaking up on my own behalf was...un-wise. So there I was, the summer before my seventh year at Hogwarts, in the middle of the French countryside. The house itself was beautiful. Laced by a forest on the north side, and to the south, rolling hills as far as you could see. Not another person around for acres. My own personal hell away from home.