Day 1

He slowly opened one of his eyelids and peered through it. He was lying in a very white, empty room. On one side of his bed was an ugly nightstand, on the other one two uncomfortable plain-looking chairs. On one of the chairs was a pile of clothing. He sat up a little bit. He didn't feel any pain, so why was he lying on a bed in St. Mungo's? Well actually he did feel a slightly stinging pain in one of his arms. No one except for him was in the room, so he decided to just wait a little bit until a healer would come that could tell him what he was doing here and how he had gotten here. Draco waited for about a quarter of an hour, then he became too impatient. He quickly got up and put on the clothes that had been lying on one of the chairs without paying a lot of attention to it. His mother must have brought them by.

Suddenly the door to his room opened and a man in a white cloak came in. He had to be a healer. He looked like he was in his mid-fifties and had spent his life eating too many chocolate frogs. His big face looked very kind though.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Malfoy." He said respectfully and held out his hand. "My name is Healer Clarke."

Draco shook his hand and felt the pain in his arm become stronger and stronger. "Hello. Can you tell me what happened?"

A big smile appeared on the old healer's face. "The war is over. You-know-who has fallen. We won."

Draco couldn't help but smile as well. This was good news. At least he had achieved what he had wanted. "So why did I lose consciousness?" He then asked.

Healer Clarke's face became darker. "You got hit by a Stupor curse."

With those few words all of Draco's memories came back to him. Him fighting with Fleur, him throwing himself in front of Hermione, him catching the curse for her. He gulped hard.

"What about the other curse that hit me?" He finally managed to ask, even though he already knew the answer to his question.

The face of the healer suddenly became as dead as a corpse. "You got hit by the Doloribus Mors curse."

Draco closed his eyes for a second, not wanting to let the old man see the fear in them. He had to focus, he could not lose his composure. He opened his grey eyes again. Now they were completely emotionless. "Is there anything you can do about it?" He asked, again knowing what the answer would be.

Healer Clarke shook his head slowly. "This is a very dark curse, I'm even surprised that you encountered a person that could operate such a curse and came out alive." As soon as he had spoken those words he had realized what mistake he had made. Alive. Draco had come out alive?

"I am sorry." The healer apologized. "That was definitely the wrong diction."

Draco just nodded absent-mindedly, not really caring. "How long is it again?"

"Seven days the longest. Often less, never more." He answered a big crease between his eyes and a frown on his face. He probably looked just like Draco himself right now.

Draco nodded. His voice was too weak and scared to sound like Draco Malfoy's when he said, "I don't want anyone to know, not even my parents, is that clear?"

The healer nodded as well. "They're waiting outside... your parents." He then informed him.

"Tell them to just give me a couple of minutes when you leave, will you?"

Again the old man nodded and went over to the door. Before he walked through it he turned around one more time.

"Mr. Malfoy, you should know that a lot of pain will be awaiting you."

Draco breathed out heavily to calm himself down. "I am fully aware of that, Healer Clarke." He hissed.

The healer bit on his lip. "I just mean that I believe you will need someone to get through this with you. Of course I am in no position to give you any advice, but... Pain is a lot easier to bear when it is shared."

"Good afternoon, Healer Clarke." was all Draco replied coldly. The old man then disappeared. Sighing Draco rolled up the right sleeve of his shirt again. Halfway between his elbow and his wrist there was a dark black mark of the size of maybe a coin. Quickly he rolled down his sleeve again, not wanting to look at it anymore. He would have enough time to look at it in the next week after all. He suddenly noticed that his left forearm was feeling oddly free and light, maybe just because his right one was now feeling so heavy and pained. But still he rolled up his left sleeve and sucked the air in sharply. The Dark Mark was gone. He couldn't believe it. As soon as he had been freed of the Dark Mark another branding of Dark Magic had appeared on his other arm. His luck. But at least he wouldn't have to ever see the ugly Dark Mark again. Just as he had rolled that sleeve back down the door burst open and his parents stormed in.

"Draco is everything alright with you? Have they been treating you well? How are you feeling? Did you eat anything yet?" Narcissa Malfoy bombarded her son with questions. Draco sighed loudly and stopped her by saying, "Everything's fine with me, mother. No reason for any worry. I just got hit by a Stupor curse and lost consciousness for a couple of hours. Nothing severe."

Both his mother and his father seemed extremely relieved by his words. Lucius grabbed him by both of his shoulders, which sent a piercing pain through Draco's right arm. He tried to hide the flinch, but wasn't very successful with that.

"Everything alright, son?" Lucius asked worried.

Draco shrugged it off. "Yes, I'm just still a little sore." he explained.

Lucius nodded understandingly. "I just wanted to let you know how glad I am that it's over. How glad I am that all three of us survived and we made it out of this alive. Now that the Dark Lord is finally defeated I feel like we can finally get to know each other better and become a real family. I know how hard the last years were on all of us. But now we have the time to fix it."

Tears welled up in Draco's eyes, but he hastily blinked them back. A whole other pain shot through his body, this time it didn't have anything to do with any curse. It had everything to do with the knowledge that that would never happen. Because they didn't have time and because he couldn't do that to them. He just smiled sadly and replied, "I'm glad too, father."

He then turned to his mother and saw that she too had tears in her eyes. "Draco." She sobbed. "I was so worried about you. I... I honestly wouldn't know what to do if my only son died before me. I don't think I could live with that. It would hurt too much, I don't think I could survive it. But you're alright. We all are."

Tears ran down her pale cheeks and it almost teared him up himself. How would she handle it? If she ever found out, what would she do? Would she take her own life?

"You don't have to worry about me, mother. I can take care of myself." His voice sounded oddly thick when he said those words. He was still trying to fight back the tears. She pulled him close to her and hugged him tighter than she had ever hugged him before.

For years he hadn't gotten along with his parents. He had found his mother weak for not standing up to his father. He had hated his father for what he had done to their family. And they had acted like they didn't care about him. And now that all this seemed to change, now that all of them had realized what was the right thing to do and how important they were to each other... now this? How could he do that to them? How could destiny do this to him? He allowed a single tear to escape his eyes and then swallowed the rest down, while his mother was hugging him tightly and his father was patting his left shoulder.

A/N: Review and let me know what you think, please.