This is my first fic so please, be kind. Obviously, I own none of the current characters and only one character in the story. You'll see who it is later! The characters, names, places and spells of the world of Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling, Warner Brothers, Bloomsbury Books and probably 101 other people that I haven't mentioned. I own nothing. Nada. Zip.

In the first few chapters I've tried to make characters as true to Ms Rowling's creation as is humanely possible. However, as this fic is going to contain romance between Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, their characters will change. This is, unfortunately, unavoidable.

Warning: The following fic contains SLASH. If you are dead against SLASH and hate to see Ms Rowling's characters mutilated in this way then please reacquaint yourself with the furthest button on the right of your browser window. Back button, meet non-SLASH fan. Non-SLASH fan, meet the back button. Click on him any time you are utterly disgusted…or now as I really don't want any flames. Thank you.

A/N: All the story is taken from Draco's point of view unless otherwise stated at any point. Thanks to my best friend DM, for all her support and for sending me towards some of the greatest SLASH fics around. Luv ya mate!

And now on with the story.

I opened my eyes blearily, looking around the room hurriedly. My eyes alighted briefly on the clock on the wall and I groaned inwardly as I realised that it was just after midnight. I needed my beauty sleep. It was impossible for someone to look as good as I did without getting at least eight hours of sleep a night. Plus, without eight hours of sleep, I get cranky. And when I get cranky everyone knows about it. I make sure of it. I'm a Malfoy. It's what we do.

What the hell had woken me up? I looked around the room more, my eyes darting to the shadows in the four corners of the room. I heard the noise that had obviously shaken me from a pleasant dream. Not the sort of dream an ordinary wizard would find pleasant but a Malfoy sort of dream. The sort of dream where you're watching everything from above, watching as the events unfold. In this particular dream Professor Snape was berating the Mudblood girl for answering back in class. A smile curved my lips as I remembered the dream and then the noise pierced my semi-conscious state, bringing me back with a sharp thud to the present. The noise seemed to come from outside, a hideous keening wail that in some ways reminded me of the Veela from the World Cup and in other ways sounded like the scream of a dragon when it's young had been stolen from it. The noise sounded ungodly and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm no wimp…I'm no Longbottom, by any stretch of the imagination. I don't quiver and quake at the thought of Professor Snape giving me a detention. I don't act like a godforsaken fool every time the name Voldemort is mentioned. I flinch, yes, but only when someone unworthy of the name 'wizard' says his name.

It's actually incredibly difficult to scare me, but even I can admit that I was, in part, at least a little afraid for my safety after hearing that noise. My hand reached to the back of my neck, rubbing gently in an attempt to assuage the prickling that had started after the scream had come again. Just as I had decided that the screaming had stopped and had turned round, intending to go back to bed (well, for all I knew it could be some of my father's friends torturing Muggles and I didn't want to get in their way) when the noise came again.

A second piercing scream came from outside Malfoy Manor and I ran to the window, my heart beating erratically as I looked out. My eyes scanned the horizon, attempting to pick out something abnormal. I stared long and hard to the west. The stones of Stonehenge loomed out of the darkness. At any other time I would not have been able to see the mysterious stones, but tonight was different. Tonight an unearthly, or mayhap otherworldly, green light appeared to be radiating off the stones, pulsing like a heartbeat. In the centre of the circle of stones stood a woman dressed only in a white nightdress, illuminated by the green glow, her head thrown back as she screamed again. This time I was able to pick up on what had been said. A single word pierced the night air, reverberating around me, seeming to echo from all sides. I raised my hands to my ears in an attempt to block out the sound but it continued to echo inside my head, breaking through the barrier of my hands.

"Lyra!"

I reached the bedside table in two quick strides and picked up my wand, pointing at himself briefly as I cast a Temporary Deafness Charm on myself. I had first learnt it at the beginning of the summer after my mother's wailing for Lucius had become too much and I had needed some way to be able to fall asleep. She had finally stopped wailing earlier that week after she had received an owl from a friend of his, informing her the all was going to plan and she would be ok. I only knew because, after my mother had expressly forbidden me to read the letter it became all the more important and interesting that I should do so. So I had. I walked back to the window, glad of the reprieve from the repulsive screaming of the woman outside, and looked out of the window towards Stonehenge. The woman had moved since I had last looked and now threw her head up to the stars, having been facing the Manor. It was only then that I realised that the woman, in her near-naked state was my own mother. I had never heard mother make such an ungodly noise. I had heard her scream, I had heard her cry, I regularly heard her in fits of rage and I had once, a long time ago and I hope never in all my days hear it again, heard the noises my mother made when she was talking to herself. But I had never in all my fifteen and a half years heard her scream and wail and have a fit of rage all in one go. Her vocal capacities still astounded me, even as I was ever so slightly terrified of the noise that had reverberated around my head since I had first awoken that night.

I sighed to myself and headed back to my bed, placing my wand back on the bedside table and closing my eyes. I was exhausted and about ready to fall asleep. My mind however decided it didn't like that idea and started asking me questions to which I didn't know the answer. I fell asleep in the very early hours of the morning, my mind still reverberating with the noise my mother had made and the unanswerable questions.

Why was she screaming? Why was she so desperately miserable? And who, or what, was Lyra?