Disclaimer: I own naught but the plot. All characters belong to J.K.Rowling.

I swear that I'm actually gonna keep updating this story. I won't start any others. Unless the stupid plot bunnies make me.

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Draco Malfoy stood over his mother's grave, a frozen expression etched onto his façade.

To any passer-by, he may have seemed like a cold uncaring child, who couldn't care less of his mother's sudden death.

Inside, though, his heart was in pain, crying for all that had befallen him that summer.

His father had been one of the few caught Death Eaters, and now that a new Minister of Magic had been elected, no sweet talk, threats, or lies could get Lucius Malfoy out of Azkaban.

Draco's mother, Narcissa Malfoy, had thrown herself off one of the manor's fifth story window.

Draco could feel beneath all of this sorrow a pang of anger at his mother for deserting him like that.

He knew she'd never really cared about him, but she'd been his mother. He hadn't loved her, but he'd felt attached to her.

And now, he was alone in the world, the Malfoy name now soiled.

He sighed, and looked up at the dark, grey sky.

He felt a drop of water fall onto his head, and then another.

He looked down at his mother's grave once more, and dropped the bouquet of flowers he'd been holding.

He turned around, and started walking towards the Ministry car waiting for him.

He climbed into the car, closed the door, and closed his eyes.

As they drove away, Draco noticed with a remorseful air that he hadn't shed a tear during the interment.

*~*~*~*~*

"This way, Mister Malfoy".

Mr. Robert Raskin, director of Azkaban Prison ushered Draco towards the high security

 cells.

He was visiting his father. Tomorrow, Lucius Malfoy would be executed, and Draco wanted to speak to his father once more.

Lucius Malfoy had not been a good father, that was true, yet he loved his son.

However horrible the wizarding world may have thought him, Lucius Malfoy did not want to die with his son's hate disrupting his rest.

He had a lot to explain.

Draco stood at the front of the security room where he'd be meeting his father.

Mr. Raskin was chattering to Draco that there were guards all over the place, and that he was completely safe, that his father couldn't hurt him, &c.

"Mr. Raskin, I know perfectly well how to act around my own father," snapped an irritated Draco. " As horrible as he may seem to you, I assure you, he would not attack his own son."

Mr. Raskin apologized, stuttering incomprehensibly.

Draco sent him out. He could deal with his father solely.

He sat down, thinking.

Tomorrow, his father would be executed, along with five other death eaters caught alongside.

Draco did not know what he was to do once his Father died. He had no relatives to care for him. None that cared enough, anyway.

There was always Tonks, he thought.

Mother's cousin, or some other whatnot, he thought. A flame of anger alighted as he thought of his mother. She had very selfishly killed herself, leaving no one to care for her only son, knowing full well that he would have to do on his own.

He looked up as he heard the door open. His father walked in, tall and proud as ever.

Draco lifted his eyes and met his father's gaze.

Prison had not diminished Lucius Malfoy in the least. He was still the same regal, selfish man he had come in as. His platinum blonde hair was neatly pulled back with a leather strap, his black prison uniform clean, and his face as cold and unflinching as ever. He held his tied-up hands behind himself, not looking ashamed, but more as if he were to meet a friend for tea.

Nevertheless, this was no tea luncheon. This was the time for Lucius Malfoy to have a final talk with his son.

The jailer looked at the two Malfoys suspiciously. Lucius Malfoy sliced his ice-cold gaze over him, a single brow raised. Draco Malfoy simply stared at the jailer steadily, something resembling hate burning in his eyes.

Mr. Raskin came in once more, looking fearfully at Draco.

"What is this?" Lucius demanded. "Can a man not even have an undisclosed conversation with his own son, these days?"

"Do not forget, Lucius, that you are still in jail, and that the privileges that you may be used to-"

"My father is to be executed tomorrow. I would like to speak with him privately, if you have any knowledge of the meaning of the word, Raskin."

"I can not allow that, I-"

"Your job is surely not worth this much struggle, is it?" Draco snapped menacingly.

Mr. Raskin's hands twitched nervously. He shook his head, and told them that he could give them a maximum of ten minutes only.

Lucius waved him away, dismissing him.

*~*~*~*~*

"How was the funeral?" Lucius asked immediately after Mr. Raskin and the jailer left the confines of the room.

"What do you expect? It was a funeral," Draco responded.

"Did anyone come?"

"If you're asking whether Antonio Zabini came, then no. And Aunt Bellatrix didn't either. Probably planning something with the Dark Lord."

Lucius, for the first time, actually looked disappointed.

"Son, I have made a grave mistake, getting caught, this time. Bella always said I'd die in the hands of a Dementor and at the mercy of the Ministry. And she was right. Do not make the same mistake, Draco. Getting your soul stolen by those foul creatures is not anything relishing, I assure you."

I wasn't planning to, Father. I wasn't planning on joining ranks with your Lord, anyway.

"I am guilty of all the charges, though, I didn't think them so bad. I was trying to rid the world of its filth. Mudbloods, Half-bloods," Lucius continued. "If that is wrong, as I said, Draco, I am guilty on all counts."

Draco couldn't believe his father. He thought it a bit pathetic. Draco believed that Mudbloods, &c. were filth, and he couldn't believe that his father actually served a half-blood. It sickened Draco.

"I ask of you one thing," his father rushed after a short minute of silence.

Draco looked up.

"Do not come to the execution tomorrow. I ask of you nothing else. Only promise me, Draco, this one thing. I shall ask of you nothing else."

The anguish broke through his father's cool veneer, and the age showed in his features. For once, Draco could actually see his father's true colors, and he did not like it one bit.

He saw an anguished, livid man, who had gone through much in his life, and had handed out torture to innocent people through all his past days.

 Now, after years of tormenting others, of insulting his peers, Draco saw how wrong he'd been. He suddenly felt ashamed and disgusted at his father's behavior, all of the rules that had been drilled into his head.

Nevertheless, he couldn't blame his father. It was the way they had been raised.

Draco once heard his mother say that with every moving event, a revelation came forth, and that whether or not anyone chose to acknowledge it, it was a revelation nonetheless.

Remembering her words, Draco thought this to be the closest thing to a revelation he'd ever come to.

He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair.

They stayed a minute in silence. Nothing needed to be said. Draco had seen his father.

Today, he would leave, alone, with no one to come home to. He was alone.

He thought of the number of times he had thought that one phrase during the course of the day.

At that exact moment, Robert Raskin strode back in, looking a good bit more confident than he had ten minutes before.

"Ten minutes has passed. Say goodbye to your son, Mr. Malfoy. You will not be able to speak again, I presume."

The jailer grabbed Lucius's arm, and led him out the door.

"Farewell, dear son. May life treat you kindly."

With that, Lucius Malfoy was taken away to his cell.

Draco was left, standing alone, in the middle of a cold, dingy room.

He suddenly felt as if he'd lived with a stranger his whole life. Farewell was not the way to speak to one's son. Draco looked sadly at the floor, and marched slowly towards the door.

"Good-bye, father," he whispered poignantly as he walked back outside, into the pouring rain.

English weather, Draco thought, slightly amused.

Nothing had changed.

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I thought this to be a good place to stop. Next chapter will be all Hermione. I hope you enjoyed this, and please review.

Songs listened to while writing this chapter:

 Bittersweet Symphony by the Verve.

Calling All Angels by Train

100 Years by Five for Fighting

Underneath Your Clothes by Shakira