A/N: A look inside Draco's life during the war.

1995

"Do it, Draco," Bellatrix Lestrange taunted with a deranged glint in her eye. Draco glared at his Aunt defiantly, and disarmed her to release her grip on the girl she was holding.

Draco Malfoy caught the whimpering girl, holding her close to support her quivering form. He began to move, wincing as Mary whimpered in pain with each step they took. Mary was the first to break the silence once they were out of earshot.

"What is it she wants you to do?" Mary asked, her voice hoarse and raspy from her time spent screaming in pain from Bellatrix's Cruciatus Curse. They arrived in a smaller sitting room on the west wing of the manor, led them to a sofa and helped her to sit down. He took a deep breath before attempting to answer her question that was still lingering in the air.

"I-" Draco began but struggled with his words, "I don't want to talk about it," he told her, hanging his head solemnly. He took off his blazer and began wiping the dirt and blood from both of their faces.

"Please," she begged, her curiosity getting the best of her. He raised his head to look into her eyes; tears had begun to blur his vision as he dropped the now soiled blazer. Struggling to move, Mary closed a small amount of the distance between them and placed her hand on his arm. He laughed a derisive, mirthless chuckle as his eyes fell to the Dark Mark that was covered by his shirt sleeve. It wasn't permanent yet, but it would be soon enough, if only she knew what she was touching. A burst of angry power surged through him and he turned toward her sharply, throwing her arm off him. Her tears began anew as she begged him not to hurt her.

"I'm not going to hurt you." He told her softly, letting the anger ebb away again.

"You're not?" she asked shakily and disbelieving.

"No, Mary, I couldn't." He reached up to stroke her cheek gently. "Never."

Mary smiled hesitantly at the gesture, Draco could hear his Mother and Aunt having a go at each other in the other room, and he was sure he knew what it was about. He tried to block them out just enough to not hear what they were yelling, but not so much that he couldn't hear it entirely. As long as the heated female voices continued, he was safe sitting there with Mary.

He sat there, ruminative for the next fifteen minutes or so, eyes glazed over, not looking at Mary, just leaning against the back of the sofa, keeping Mary's hand in his.

"Draco?" she asked as the voices stopped. It wasn't her voice that brought him out of his reverie, but the cease of voices in the other room.

"Shit," he said. He heard footsteps steadily coming closer to the room; he held Mary's hand tightly praying to Merlin that they were his mother's, not his Aunts. He let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding when the door opened a crack and the pale, strained face of Narcissa Malfoy poked through it. When she saw that they were in there she quickly slipped through the opening and closed the door quickly behind her. She wasted no time in making her way over to the sofa and crouched down in front of them, speaking in a hurried, hushed voice.

"Listen, now that Mary has been found out to be a muggle-born, she cannot go back to school," she told her son as if Mary wasn't even there. "I realise that you care for the girl and want to help her. I sent an owl to Andromeda as soon as I realised this, she has graciously offered to take her in. When I take you to the train station, I will apparate her there, but we have to go now. As far as Bellatrix knows, she is returning to school to be… taken care of…" a grim look spread across her already sullen face. "I'm sorry." Narcissa turned toward the girl for the first time with a surprisingly apologetic look and she pulled a rope out from her robes. Mary didn't respond, she just looked down into her lap, allowing whatever she had coming to her. She felt too worn, too defeated to struggle or say anything, too much to even display any emotions anymore. There was a glimmer of hope though, if Narcissa's plan worked, she would just have to hold on until then. The older woman stood up and stepped back, Draco rose from the couch and extended his hand toward her; she accepted it and allowed him to pull her into a standing position as well. As she looked up into the face of the woman standing a few feet away she could see her age lines on her beautiful face, her mouth turned down in a permanent frown. They heard footsteps walking around in a nearby room, and everyone tensed, though the footsteps did not come closer, the sound still put everyone on edge.

"We must hurry." Narcissa quickly knelt beside the girl ropes in hand.

Narcissa bound the girl's wrists together whispering "is this too tight?" in her ear as she did so. Mary shook her head and allowed the woman to finish binding her.

Draco raised his eyebrow at his Mother, confused as to why she was performing that task the muggle way and she seemed to have understood because she responded in an incredibly low voice, just in case anyone was listening, "I wanted to make sure they weren't too tight, I don't know how to control that with magic" Draco nodded and opened the door for the women. As soon as they stepped out of the room Narcissa started handling Mary roughly, shoving her and yelling at her, "Get going Mudblood!" Bellatrix stood by watching the scene with an ugly, evil smile on her face, she started giggling manically.

"Yeah, out of this house! Faster, you filthy Mudblood!" she screamed in a delighted tone. There was something seriously wrong with that woman, second most psychotic person Draco knew next to Voldemort. "Cruc-"

"No!" Narcissa begin to scream, interrupting the horrible curse her sister had started to utter. "Really Bellatrix, I don't want to have to carry the girl, please leave her conscious," she finished in attempt to cover up her momentary lapse of judgement.

"Oh alright," Bellatrix pouted.

Narcissa draped a cloak around the girl to hide the binding from passing muggles on the way to the train station.

Once outside the wards of Malfoy Manor, they walked down the street to the apparation point, "I'll side along Mary. Draco you are good to apparate by yourself?" Draco glared at her.

"Yes Mother, I think I can manage," he told her icily.

"I was just making sure," she told him, offended at his reaction to her kindness, "I'm just not used to the idea of you being all grown up," she told him, in a rare moment of sappiness. The Malfoy family tried to stay as cool as possible, let as little real emotion show as possible. It was how they were raised and it was how they raised Draco, just like a proper old Pureblood family should be. But there were moments like this every so often where emotion just washed over her and she couldn't control it entirely. Everything that had been going on since the beginning of the war flooded her very being. Everything she had watched her innocent young son do. Helping torture muggles, undergoing rigorous training to kill, getting the dark mark burned into his arm…

"Mom? Are you okay?" Draco asked her with great concern, the iciness he had displayed only moments before melted away completely. He put his hand on her shoulders. She had completely let go of Mary and let herself fall into Draco's arms he was now even taller than her. This brought another wave of fresh tears, reminding her of how much he had grown.

"I'm so sorry," she sobbed quietly into his chest, "I'm sorry."

"Mom? It's okay… I was rude, I shouldn't have been so offended," he told her, patting her back and wondering why in the name of Merlin she was so upset.

"No," she shook her head and lifted her head from his chest slightly, just enough to look up at him. He saw the pain and misery in her eyes. "I'm sorry for being such a horrible moth-"

"Mom! No! You are not," he told her sternly. He reached out to the side and placed a quick disillusionment charm on Mary, realising how weird this scene must look to anyone passing by on the street.

"No Draco, listen to me," she told him fiercely, not allowing his rejection of her apology. "I am sorry you have had to grow up so fast, I am so sorry, it is not fair, not at all. And nobody, at any age, should have to grow up in the ways that you have. I-" she took a deep breath shuddering and shaking a little. She took a step back and smoothed down her clothes in an attempt to compose herself. She wiped all emotion from her face and told him in a very measured tone, "We need get you and Mary to the train station."

"Your right," he told her grimly, trying with all his might to not dwell on her apology, to save it until later, in private quarters. Malfoys did not lose composure in public. He disapparated to Muggle London, and waited for his Mother and Mary. It wasn't long before they appeared beside him with a crack and together they silently made their way to King's Cross.

A/N: Hope you like it, I know, not much back story, but it will come, for now I think what we know from the books is enough to at least have it make sense to a certain extent.