A/n.: i own nothing recognisable! Please enjoy my first attempt on an angsty fic!

After flicking the blond strand of hair, that hung before his eyes, back, he walked to the punch bowl that was stalled on a round table. He did his best not to meet the eyes of the snobby people around him. The punch had a colour that summonned skin – crawling memories to the ghost of his eye. Red. Red like his mother's eyes when she had nursed his wounds. Red like the blood that had dripped from them. Red like the blood that was puddled around the unfortunate first that had fallen in front of his feet. Draco Malfoy remembered seeing his reflection in it.

Even more stinging memories rolled into his troubled mind as he stared into the punch bowl. They came in waves, each one higher than the previous one. He frowned, but couldn't keep them from crashing onto his shores. The expectations, the assumption and the prejudice. The increasing pressure, the pain and the inner struggle. Not to mention the threat, the danger and the failed plans.

Keeping his gaze on the red mirror image of himself to stop the events from playing again and again in his mind, he felt eyes boring in his head. He was being watched. But he didn't care. He would always be watched, where ever he was. So why would he be bothered now?

He had watched him too. But not with eyes filled with disdain, loathing or fear. He had watched him with kind, understanding and sympathising eyes. And he had still looked at him in the same wat when he, Draco Malfoy, had raised his wand on him, Albus Dumbledore. The old wizard had smiled at him and said: "Draco, Draco, you are not a killer."

How that quietly uttered sentence had started to break down the vast walls of false hope and bravado he had built in his mind. And the old man had spoken the sheer truth, no matter how hard Draco fought against it. His façade had melt away, the fear in his reddened grey eyes visible for the Headmaster.

"Haven't got any other options!" he had said. "I've got to do it! He'll kill me! He'll kill my whole family!"

"I can help you, Draco." Albus had said. But Draco had known he couldn't be saved. He had been lured in too deep in the deathly catacombs of Voldemort. There had been no turning back.

"The seventh of June, seven o'clock. Be here." No turning back. The words echoed in Draco mind in a deathly cold and heartless voice. That voice. Those eyes. The threat.

The cause of that horrible, yet inevitable event. The masked, black-cloaked witches and wizards had stormed past, attacking everything that moved, including students. Hexes and jinxes had flown past his ears, narrowly missing him. One had hit a student, the Avada Kedavra.

Draco winced as guilt washed over him. HE had been the one to let the Death Eaters enter Hogwarts. He was the one responsible for the suffering and death of fellow students. But what else was I supposed to do? Let the Dark Lord kill my family?

The old wizard Dumbledore had looked at him in a way none of the people present at his 17th party had ever looked at him, save his mother.

He was still being watched. The prickling in his neck kept increasing, when all of a sudden, it stopped. Shaking of his mild confusion, he pushed away all Dumble-thoughts and focused on his reflection. His eyes, that once sparkled with arrogance, were a dull grey. The sparkle had died alond with the Headmaster. There were bags under his eyes and his skin was a sickly yellow. A flare of dismay rose up from deep inside of him when he noticed his unhealthy appearance. He plunged the ladle he had been holding for the previous minutes into the bowl, causing the still scarlet surface to break. His reflection faded, but the tormenting memories remained the same. How he wished he could be his reflection.

All at once, the prickle that had been absent for a while, returned in an excruciating way. Pain soared through his veins, his muscles cramped up and he screamed out his agony. It was as if his spinal cord was about to snap in to with the intensity he doubled, squirmed an writhed. His body had hit the cold, stone floor in a way he knew he would be bruised. But he didn't care about the bruises, about the chronic pain he would get from the Cruciatus Curse. It was too much for him; he wanted to end the suffering. He wanted to die. But the pain continued for what seemed, hours, when it finally came to an end.

'Weak!' spat a low, silky voice. 'No son of mine is weak!' Draco looked up, with heaving chest and dilated eyes, at his father and aunt Bella, who held a wand to his heart. Everybody, except for Narcissa Malfoy, his mother, burst in laughter when Bellatrix sneered: 'A birthday gift... From the Dark Lord.'

He was still panting when he stuffed the gold and the few robes in his knapsack. The pain always continued after the Cruciatus Curse had lifted. It was an endless suffering for Draco Malfoy, yet he couldn't complain. And he didn't. The chronic pain had become a part of his life.

He ripped the silver chain with the black pendant from his neck. Its petite shackles cutting the sides of his neck. The pendant. It was a family heirloom: the grandfather of Draco had found it during the WOI of the Muggles. Since then it was passed on to the firstborn son. He traced the cool silver that was encoiled around the so-called black "diamond". "No son of mine is weak!"

So be it, father. He gritted his teeth when a gut-wrenching feeling came over him and he threw it on the floor. You deny me as your son, then I deny you as my father.

He, wincing, grabbed his knapsack, his wand and his broomstick. 'Alohomora!'

The window flew open and he flew through the window, planning to return this mansion ever again.

He cast a Disillusionment Charm over himself and increased the speed. The wind played with his hair and even though he'd have to face his father and You-Know-Who in two days, a sense of freedom washed over him.

So… Where to?

(A/n: Review if you want the next chapter! Draco discovers something very upsetting and meets someone who unknowingly has a place in his heart.

This fic, originally one-shot, is a background-info fic, for my grand Draco fic. If you care to know what it is about, just contact me!)