This story has OBVIOUS parallels with one of Shakespeare's plays.

Disclaimer: this story is based on characters and situations owned by JK Rowling and various publishers and Warner Bros. Inc. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made. I also have no claim on Shakespeare.

This was written as the beginning of a story I've been thinking about for weeks now. More will be forthcoming shortly, only I've got to go to bed now.

"Draco? Draco, wake up."

Mother's voice. Quiet, for her, but still as sharp and impatient as ever.

"Draco. Wake up."

Must be morning. Funny. Doesn't feel like it.

He opened his eyes, slowly, found himself staring at the underside of the green silk canopy, emblazoned with the black-and-silver Malfoy crest: a sword, half black and half silver, on a reversed silver and black ground. The words Superbia, Scientia, Fidelis stared back at him. Slowly he transferred his gaze down to his mother's face, bending over him. Her makeup was, as ever, irreproachable, her platinum hair firmly held in a complicated prison of curls and braids that resembled nothing so much as a nest of white worms. "Draco," she said. "Your father's guests will be here shortly. He wishes you to attend them."

"Do I have to?"

"Yes." She got up, charcoal velvet robes falling perfectly into Renaissance folds. "He wants to show off your excellent manners and breeding."

"Can't imagine why." Draco yawned hugely and sat up, running hands through his hair. "Who's going to be there?"

"MacNair, Nott, the Lestranges' heir, possibly some of the Russians. Do make an effort to be presentable, Draco."

He slithered out of bed. "I take it you want me to wear the official Malfoy robes?"

Narcissa was silent for a moment, and he turned to look at her. The expression on her statue's features was so out of character that he felt his knees go briefly weak. She looked...sorry. Sorry, and unhappy, and as if she wished she didn't have to go through this.

"Yes," she said simply. "And be good."

Ah, yes. Good. Be good. Take Lucius's gibes with becoming self-deprecation and suck it up. He knew what being "good" meant.

"Yes, Mother."

She left, and he was alone with the luxurious barrenness of his room, and the wardrobe full of designer robes that cost more than an entire year's tuition at Hogwarts per square yard. Right.

He sighed, walked over to the washbasin and splashed frigid water on his face. The shock brought him halfway to wakefulness, but he still felt logy and overtired as he flipped back the sodden hair from his face and pulled open the wardrobe, staring at the serried ranks of velvets and silks. The Malfoy dress robes were complicated and multilayered and thoroughly uncomfortable, and the high collar made him look like a vicar. Nevertheless, he dressed as hurriedly as he could, and found himself staring at his reflection in the antique cheval glass with some admiration. He looked, vestment-collar aside, rather like a young angel in a Caravaggio painting.

How nice. Maybe that'll placate Lucius enough to avoid a beating. I'm still sore from last week.

He ran a comb through the colorless hair, a legacy from the veela ancestors several generations back, and scowled fiercely at his reflection. That's going to have to do.

Draco Malfoy left his chambers.

Lucius Malfoy's little impromptu salons were well-known in the Death Eater society as a mark of distinction; to have garnered an invitation to one of these gatherings was to have achieved a kind of ascendancy among one's fellow Silver Serpents. When Draco got down to the parlour, MacNair and Nott were already there, and Lucius, ensconced in his favourite thronelike chair, was already holding court. Christ. I wonder how long this is going to take. I've got sleep to catch up on, and about seven essays for Snape I need to do before much longer. He's been as lenient with me as he can.

"Ah, Draco," said Lucius, absently. Draco knew better than to take that tone at face value. The more absent Lucius sounded, the more attentive he was being to the situation. He had the dangerous vague look on his lovely features too. Draco's heart thumped uncomfortably. Wonder what he's planning.

"Father," said Draco, in the subservient tones he'd been painfully taught.

"Come in, come in, my boy. Take a seat. MacNair was telling me about a fascinating new curse he's been working on. Do continue, MacNair."

Draco subsided onto the end of a couch, folding his hands decorously on his lap and trying to look interested. Screwing with Potty and Weasel and the rest of them at school was one thing; there he had absolute autonomy over the actions of most of Slytherin House. Here, at "home," he was as much a prisoner as their house-elves, although a better-dressed one. He marshalled his features into an expression of polite interest at what MacNair was describing, which was extremely explicit and involved the structural integrity of the typical human liver.

"You could've done with that one last time you and Potter had a duel," drawled Lucius. Draco stiffened. His father was alluding to the incident on the school train at the end of last term, when he and his thugs had been attacked from at least three directions by hexes, and had spent the entire trip back unconscious on the corridor floor. There had been choice words from Lucius about that. Words, and actions. He shifted uncomfortably on the couch, aware of the heaviness of the robes on the new scars over his back and chest.

"Yes, Father."

"Interesting," Lucius continued. "I hadn't thought the lobes would have that much consistency. What about the spleen, MacNair? I've always been fond of the spleen."

"Well, that's a different story," said MacNair, swelling with pride. "If I might say so, our experiments have proven that the human spleen can withstand astonishing amounts of trauma. The trick is to do it slowly and evenly, so that the natural processes of regeneration and healing have a chance to begin."

"Indeed," said Lucius. "Ah, Avdotya, please, take a seat. Cognac?"

Draco recognized the dark-haired woman who'd just joined the group as another of the most favoured Death Eaters, an ex-associate of Igor Karkaroff and a professor at Durmstrang. He was unable to suppress a small shudder at the thought of how close he'd come to attending Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts. It had been rather a nice idea at the beginning of term, with Potter and his little Army of Light giving off annoying waves of wholesomeness; however, with the events of the year and the astonishing reality of Diggory's death at the hands of his father and the other Death Eaters, Draco's entire view of the world had become somewhat skewed. He wasn't at all sure he wanted to be a Death Eater anymore, but he knew damn well that trying to back out of it at this point was tantamount to telling his father to go and screw himself, and he knew suicide when he saw it. Oh, yes, he knew suicide.

Avdotya Ryubova sat down, accepted a glass of brandy. "Ah, Lucius," she said musically. "This is the boy?" Draco was aware of her eyes on him, and tried to look less conspicuous, which wasn't easy under several yards of green and black brocade.

"Indeed," said Lucius. "Draco, meet Avdotya Vasilievna Ryubova. Avdotya, this is my son Draco."

Draco got up, swept the Death Eater a complicated bow he'd been taught at the age of eight. "My lady."

"Charming," said Avdotya to Lucius. "He's just like you. Give him five years and he'll be breaking hearts just as you did."

"Ah, weren't those the days?" said Lucius, with no humour in his glacial eyes. "Draco, leave us. We must discuss business."

He fled.