A/N: This came to me in my head while I was in the shower (like most of my good ideas) and I had to write a short little story just to appease my head. I hope you think it's interesting!

-Ashley

It was pitch black in the castle, but it didn't stop every sound from amplifying tenfold across the stone corridors. Every footfall echoed dangerously up and down, back and forth, as though in surround sound. In a panic, Draco dodged and ducked, trying to find a place to hide, Professor Snape being annoying close behind him, and he didn't think that his head of house would be too happy to find him wandering around after dark yet again.

He groped the wall and found a door that he didn't recognize to be a classroom, so he pulled it open, throwing himself inside. At once he noticed that the room was stacked floor to ceiling with nothing but junk. Deciding to brave the trash instead of Snape, he took off at a sprint down one of the many aisles. As he looked more closely at all of the items, he noticed that it wasn't really junk at all, rather stacks and piles of items that it would be hard to imagine anyone wanting to part with.

There were books, and jewelry, and sofas, plates, glasses, and a rather large wardrobe. Draco stopped in his tracks. This particular wardrobe looked familiar, and he knew immediately where from. This was the exact cabinet that he'd been looking for since September, it's replica being found inside of Borgin and Burke's in Knockturn Alley. Montague had mentioned one existed inside the castle, but Draco had been beginning to doubt him… until now. There was no denying that this was the broken vanishing cabinet, but how it'd gotten to this room, Draco had no idea.

Either way, he had found it, and the Dark Lord would be pleased. Draco opened one of the creaking doors and slowly closed it again, not sure where to begin. All he knew was that the cabinet was broken, but he had no idea how it was broken, or how to fix it. Pushing his robes up his arms and out of the way, he set to work placing spells that would hopefully tell him just how severe an issue he was working with.

It had been two months of sitting in front of the Vanishing Cabinet with no luck, and Draco was growing increasingly frustrated. "What is wrong with you, you stupid thing?" he shouted, aiming a kick at the cabinet. Yowling with sudden pain that had spread across his foot, Draco teetered backward and stepped on a dusty old cloth, pulling it partially off of the large object it covered. Draco grew curious and pulled the sheet off the rest of the way, revealing a rather large mirror with the words Erised straeh ruoy tub ecaf ruoyto nwohsi printed around the top.

It wouldn't have been anything extraordinary had it shown him his typical reflection, but that's not what he saw when he gazed into it.

Draco saw more than one person in the mirror's face, but before he could tell what they were doing, he yelped and jumped out of the way of the mirror as though it were about to attack him. Once he realized that he was still quite alone, he eased his way back in front of it.

The mirror showed him a series of scenes. He saw himself tapping the Vanishing Cabinet and he could hear whispers of the spells he should use. He then saw himself opening the cabinet and several of his fellow Death Eaters, his own father included, crawling out of it. Lastly he saw himself standing in front of Albus Dumbledore with a flash of green light and Lord Voldemort standing beside him, his hand on his shoulder much like a proud father.

"You show the future, don't you?" Draco muttered gleefully, placing a soft hand on the mirror in appreciation. With new vigor, Draco watched the scenes again, memorizing the spells he was to use as he turned to begin working on the cabinet once more.

Back in the room once again- how he had come to despise this place, yet he had to know. Dragging Crabbe and Goyle behind him, he rushed through aisles of treasures until he saw the dusty sheet, once again draped over the masterpiece it had hidden over a year ago. He pulled the sheet down, demanding that Crabbe and Goyle stand back as lookouts on either side of him as he stepped forward to gaze at his reflection in the mirror once more.

Expecting to immediately see who would win the war and how they would go about doing it, Draco was disappointed to see simply himself staring back at him, although not appearing the same as how he appeared in the real world. In the mirror, he was clearly shaken and his robes were torn. He looked as though he'd just been through the war, his face streaked with blood and his blonde hair awry. He was, however, very much alive with a smile on his face, his father standing behind him with an approving nod, holding his mother's hand. According to the mirror, his family would survive the war, and he would be happier by the end of it.

"Surely this means that the Dark Lord wins," Draco hissed in panicked confusion. "Otherwise Father would be devastated… and likely arrested." He wasn't sure what the mirror meant this time.

"Goyle, get over here," he snapped, beckoning the larger of his two henchmen to come stand in front of the mirror. "What do you see?" he asked, his voice growing angrier with each passing moment.

"I see myself putting on a Death Eater hood. I'm standing beside my father and—"

"Yes, yes, that's inevitable," snapped Draco, pushing Goyle out of the way. "What about you Crabbe?" he asked, yanking Crabbe to the position in front of the mirror.

"I see me casting the Dark Mark over Granger's bloody—"

"Shut up," Malfoy suddenly hissed, holding up a hand to silence Crabbe. Although the prospect of Granger dying might have been worthy of hearing more about, he'd just heard her. Perhaps it was simply his mind playing tricks on him. But then he heard Potter, as well.

"Common," he muttered to Crabbe and Goyle, leaving the seemingly useless mirror behind him as he shifted through items to confront Potter face-to-face.

A/N: I needed this story to fill in some of the gaps in Draco's plotline that I had never been able to imagine. And now I'm pleased to say that I have at least this much to fill my hunger for Draco.