"Draco!" Pansy shrieked, sliding open the compartment and shoving past Crabbe and Goyle to get to him. "I've missed you!"
Draco let her hug him. "Hello, Pansy." Over her shoulder, Draco saw Daphne and Astoria lingering at the door to the compartment, waiting for Pansy to disentangle so they could go back to their compartment. Draco let out a little scoff, and Pansy reluctantly let go.
"Right, how were your summers?" he asked after the girls had departed.
He let Crabbe and Goyle drone on as he polished his prefect badge. Getting the letter about being a prefect had lifted his spirits considerably. It was a good distraction from the rest of the miserable summer. He stood up. "I'm going to stretch my legs." Goyle grinned knowingly, because this usually meant it was time to run into Potter and his lot and rough them up a bit.
"Wait, you haven't told us anything about your summer," Crabbe interrupted.
"Oh," Draco said, his mood turning foul. His stomach twisted. "The same old, same old."
"Visiting that Beauxbatons girl, yes?" Goyle said, his grin wolfish. "Care to tell us more of your escapades, O Slytherin Prince?"
"When did you start caring about what I do?" Draco said, disgruntled. "And-" It was like a bomb was about to go off inside of him. He jabbed a finger into Goyle's quivering chest. "Whatever you are trying to imply with this- this foul hearsay, I will deny it all."
"Hey, Draco," said Crabbe, touching his arm. "You alright?"
He was trembling, panting, bitter and angry - the farthest from alright he had been this whole trip.
But nobody had asked if he was alright all summer. He schooled his expression into a cool, mocking scowl, and let his breaths even out. He was glad they were the only ones to see his outburst. He'd have to do a better job of reigning himself in…
"I'm a prefect now. Why would I not be?"
Except everything was changing. And Draco was far from alright.
It was his mother who came to get him from the Hogwarts Express when the year ended. She looked awful. Her dress was rumpled, her eyes bloodshot, it was as if she had aged ten years. It wiped the foolish grin right off Draco's face.
"Your dad is in Azkaban."
No.
"We are defenseless now. Your Auntie stays with us now.." She clutched onto his shoulders, hunched over him. Her eyes betrayed everything she was feeling - her anguish and her pity, but her fierceness too. Her insistence that he follow what she said. "She will never hear about Jane."
Had it been maybe one year ago, the idea of letting Jane go entirely would have seemed utterly ridiculous; he had been waiting to kiss her, it seemed like nothing would be able to keep him from seeing her again in the summer, from lazing around under their tree together. From feeling less alone.
Had it been maybe one year ago, he would have fought back, cried, kicked and screamed and proclaimed how unfair it was, how they were taking everything from him and why did nothing ever go his way anymore and why did they have to be a part of the war and we're on Voldemort's side so why does he have to take so much from us-
"She will never hear about Jane," he promised. He was not the person he had been last year. He loathed to admit it, but with every passing day, Jane felt more and more far away. It felt like she wasn't even real anymore. Perhaps he had just dreamed up those blissful summer days, and Jane herself. It made sense. None of his mates ever inquired about her anymore. Nobody recognized the anguish and turmoil Draco had been dragged through throughout the year.
"You promise, Draco?"
He grabbed his mother's hand. He meant to give it a reassuring squeeze, but it played out as more of a helpless spasm. "I- I promise."
In the manor, it was just Draco, his mother, and his aunt.
Auntie Bellatrix was a carbon copy, a watered down, deranged, perhaps carnal version of his mother. He despised everything about her - her strange mannerisms, that wild look in her eyes, how she called his mother 'Cissy' and stuck her face way too close to his whenever she talked to him.
Bellatrix was around most days. One day, Draco was curled up in his room, trying to take a nap, when she burst through and sauntered to his bed. It was a good thing she made such a loud entrance; Draco was given just enough time to shake off his fatigue and fortify his mind when she shrieked, "Legilimens!"
For the first time in his life, he was grateful that he had spent the last summer locked up, learning Occlumency.
"Would you quit it?" Draco snapped one day, sick and tired of having to keep up all the internal barriers. It made him think of Jane more, because around her he never had to worry about guarding his thoughts. His streams of conscience were never stopped or questioned, she took in everything about him with a certain steadiness that Draco missed terribly.
"Draco, dearie, I'm merely training you. Keeping you at your wits end. What's it that Moody says? Constant vigilance!" And she cackled. Cackled. At the end of her fit, she coughed out a hasty, "Legilimens!" But Draco's barriers were already up. He found himself bracing his mind whenever she walked into the room.
Bellatrix communicated to him his new job the next morning, over breakfast.
He briefly imagined what Jane would think about all of this, but then his stomach started twisting up in knots and fear overcame him, so he imagined his father instead. It was proving to be a very effective coping method.
"So you'll do it?" Bellatrix leered.
"Of course," he snapped back, pushing away from the table. "Got to go. Schemes to plot. Headmasters to kill."