Draco's right forearm burned as he winced slightly, his left hand grasping his right elbow as he looked into the full length mirror inside of his room. He raised his gaze from his arm to his face and frowned.

A bead of sweat dripped down the side of his forehead past his silver eyes and his frown turned angry as Draco inwardly cursed at himself.

The initiation hadn't been so bad. He didn't have to kill or rape anyone, contrary to the rumors that he had heard. It was a blood ritual instead, ending with the branding of Voldemort's Dark Mark into the formerly pristine pale flesh of his right forearm. He had known for weeks that this was going to happen, that he was going to become a Death Eater, and he also knew what task the Dark Lord had saw fit to entrust to him to fulfill in the next school year. So why did he feel like this?

He could barely decipher how he felt at all. Fearful, certainly. Disgusted, perhaps. A weird sense of pride for being hand picked by the most powerful dark wizard of all time to carry out a critical mission, even. But there was something more, and he didn't want to acknowledge it, because it made him want to run as far away as possible to the ends of the earth and hide for the rest of his days.

He knew it was wrong. He was on the wrong side, his family was on the wrong side, and the task he had to fulfill would rip him apart from the inside out. But what other choice did he have? He was a Malfoy, after all, the only Malfoy heir, and there were obligations to be met and expectations to be filled. He'd been raised to be who he was today - a blood purist warrior. A worthy heir to Lucius. A star of Slytherin, A Death Eater.

This was it. This was who he was. It had been predetermined before he had even arrived from the womb. It was not a decision he had the option of declining. It was his birthright and inheritance.

Tears were threatening to erupt and Draco's anger surged. Only cowards cry, he scolded himself, but then again, isn't that exactly what he was? Who else but a coward would be about to break down in tears and entertain hopeless ideas of running away from his responsibilities?

His jaw clenched and brows set in an increasingly angry line, he growled silently and stormed from his room, the air suffocatingly hot. He only made it a few steps into the long corridor before he stopped, the knots in his stomach growing sickeningly tighter as he heard the sounds of the celebration happening in the east wing of the house. He knew he would have to show his face eventually, since he was, after all, the reason why a large number of Death Eaters were assembled in his house, gleefully consuming his father's expensive liquor and undoubtedly trading stories about all the filthy mudbloods they had recently killed.

Mudbloods. He cringed at the word that he himself used more than his fair share of times. The air was getting even hotter and he started heading in the opposite direction of the cackling and clatter, feeling as if he would surely vomit if he didn't get some fresh air fast.

He moved quickly through the long hallways but stopped dead his tracks when he finally reached his destination, one of the many large and ornate balconies that Malfoy Manor boasted of. There, outside the large glass doors was Narcissa, his dignified and regal mother who looked anything but as she held her face in her hands and trembled with heaving sobs for her only son.

The sight was like a knife to the heart, and Draco looked on in horror. This was the last thing he thought he could handle right now, and his instincts screamed at him to run, but he knew there was nowhere to run to.

Instead he just watched as the only person in his life who he knew truly loved him and always had fell to pieces. Indeed, where Lucius had been an authority figure and mentor and not much more, his mother was the nurturer, a rare source of love from his blissfully ignorant childhood to the increasingly miserable present day. She had argued desperately with Lucius and pleaded with him to somehow spare Draco of the Dark Mark, to convince the Dark Lord to choose somebody else for the task. Neither parent knew that Draco was aware of this fact, but despite the Manor's thick walls and his parents' silence charms, Draco had long ago perfected the art of spying on them and continued to this day to hear what he was not meant to hear. It was how he knew weeks prior that he was going to become a Death Eater, and that Voldemort had chosen him to assassinate Dumbledore next year. It was how he knew that Lucius, while not entirely pleased or unworried, considered this to be an honor, but that Narcissa was horrified and became hysterical when she learned of the plans.

Draco's mind reflected back to his earliest memory, and his eyes threatened to spill over with the fuzzy recollection. It was around the age of three, and it was the first time he had ever performed magic. He and his mother had been in the lavish garden that she personally tended to each day while he would play. She had been busy magically pruning with her wand when Draco's delighted laugh caught her attention. When she looked she saw little Draco, sitting in the grass and touched the bud of a red rose, which instantly bloomed as his laughs grew.

"Mama! Look, look!" he had cried, looking up to see his mother's face full of joy as she hurried to his side.

"Oh, Draco, look at you!" she had cried with happy years in her eyes, "I am so proud of you! Oh, my baby's grown up so much!" After kissing her boy happily she had directed him to another rose bud, which also bloomed at his touch. The sound of her laughs mingled with his childlike ones, and though reality beckoned, the 16 year old Draco wished he could stay in that garden, knowing nothing of the dark side of magic and only of the blissful wonder that he knew as an innocent child.

Draco's mind was jerked out of its escape when Narcissa fell to her knees, still sobbing. He could see her lips moving, and he realized that she was praying.

It was then that Draco could hold back no more, and he finally wept. He wept for his mother, who all his life tried to protect him from the life that being Lucius' son made inevitable. He wept for the child in his memory, whose innocence was corrupted the day that Lucius told him he was superior to other children, to those who had no magic, and that those people were called mudbloods and should be regarded as less than human. He wept for his present self, who was now trapped in a horrendous situation that demanded he either kill or be killed.

"Draco?"

His wet eyes flew open and Narcissa stood before him, head held high and her face showing no sign of the tears she had shed just moments ago, clearly the result of some sort of charm. Draco didn't know how long he had been leaning with his back to the wall as he had finally let himself cry, or what to say now that his mother had caught him.

"Draco," she said again, but this time nearly a whisper, seeing the pain etched on her son's face. Her eyes began to swell again and she let out a strangled sound as she pulled him into the tightest embrace she had ever given.

"I'll protect you," She said as she held him tight and felt his shoulders shake. "I promise you, I'll find a way."

Draco nodded, though he knew she couldn't. He had no protection, no options. He only had the cold, grim promise of reality and a task to fulfill that would hang about him like the darkest of clouds and drag him down like an inescapable anchor. And although he knew that whether he should fail or succeed, either outcome would further break his mother's already fractured heart, at least for now, he was home, and somebody still loved him.