Narcissa clutched Draco while the rush of King's Cross bustled around them. His bags rested beside him, heavier this year since Narcissa insisted on him overpacking, and he needed to board the train to have time to load them away. But Narcissa held on, forcing Draco clear his throat to be released.

"Take care of yourself," she said, and stepping back, let her hand linger on his arm. Draco humored her a moment, not letting himself think too long on how he had to angle down at her.

Or how this was the first year his father wouldn't be seeing him off.

"Of course," he assured her, as though the fresh brand on his arm didn't weigh down his every breath. There wasn't actually pain any longer, that faded after a restless night of forced celebration. The Mark came with promise of an upcoming task only he could accomplish, and despite Snape's weeks of tutoring, Draco knew as much about the task as he did at its initial presentation.

She smiled at him, almost sadly, and lowered her hand. "Write me often."

"At least once a week," Draco said in further assurance. It was the deal they made first year after she wrote to him every other day, always urging him to respond. The habit of a once weekly letter remained with him, and gave Orion a reason to get out of the owlery.

Draco smoothed his robes and took his luggage to the compartment, keeping only the bag with his school robes inside. Orion's cage went with the other allowed pets, stored away in a compartment where their smell wouldn't permeate the train cars. He thought less of students who carried their pets around the train with them.

Narcissa stood by the tracks, watching his every step. They had arrived early, but not early enough to linger for extended goodbyes. Draco boarded the train without offering so much as a wave through a window, choosing instead to make his way down the narrow aisles to the bathrooms. Before the prefect meeting, he needed to change into his school robes. If it wasn't frowned on to arrive to King's Cross in robes, he wouldn't have bothered with the extra step.

Students stepped out of his way. Draco went to the bathroom with head held high, glaring at anyone who so much as looked his way.

He already had the silver prefect badge pinned to his robe, and it made quick work of changing. Draco checked the mirror, straightening out his robe and tie, before stepping out. His first stop was the prefects' meeting, although he saw no point to it.

He met Voldemort over the summer, stared into red eyes while his arm had been pinned down and marked, as the Dark Lord claimed him as one of his own. Being his meant Draco sat in on the meetings. He knew what was to come. He knew there was no reason to go through the motions of another school year when at any point, he could be called back to join the Death Eaters.

Shaking away the thoughts, Draco made himself stay present. He found the carriage where the prefects were readying to meet. Macmillan had already arrived, and Granger and Weasley were visible from hair alone. He had the unfortunate timing of being too late for his choice of seats, but too early for Pansy to have arrived. He took the seat across the aisle from the others, sitting alone in Pansy's absence.

The carriage filled in slowly, the prefects from fifth and seventh year grouping together, rather than by house. It allowed everyone to quickly find their seats, but left Draco alone at his table until Pansy slid in beside him.

"You haven't responded to a single letter this summer."

"I realize."

"Is everything—"

"Fine," Draco said, before she was stupid enough to hint at something where anyone could overhear. Pansy knew as much as anyone suspected, but with Potter's group sitting so close, he wouldn't offer up rumors for their entertainment.

She nodded as if she could possibly understand. "I'd started to think you'd turned in your badge."

"Mother convinced me otherwise."

All he had been told was that the Dark Lord would have a task for him to complete during the year. He initially felt withdrawing from his role as prefect would be most conducive to accomplishing whatever the task might be, but Narcissa insisted. When trying to convince her, she pressed, leaving Draco with little choice but to assume she knew what the task would be. His best efforts failed to dissuade her; she knew something she couldn't let on.

The Head Boy and Girl came in as the train departed, and began to hand out the assignments for nightly patrol. During their speech, they mentioned the new rules that were going to be set in place, including the strict boundaries around the school. After the rumors circulating, the professors had chosen to add additional security and wards.

Draco listened, bored, with his chin propped on the back of a hand. He wondered what the lot of them would think if they knew the wizard they were defending against had spent the last year living in his house. That only two weeks before, he had brought Draco before him for the first time to brand him. The entirety of the wizarding world around them was taking every precaution to defend against someone right under their nose.

"We'll be doing as many rounds as Umbridge added on for us last year," Pansy muttered.

"With more accountability."

They couldn't get away with nearly as much as they had last year. Umbridge let them do anything in the name of order, encouraging a heavy hand when it came to discipline. She gave little regard to what manner of discipline was used against what sort of rule breaking.

The train only just departed and Draco already had grown tired at the thought of sixth year.

Pansy nudged him when the meeting was over. He had let his gaze drift to the passing countryside, more interested in the landscape than learning a new series of rules he intended to ignore. Despite agreeing to stay on as prefect, Draco didn't foresee himself putting in any true effort.

He got up when she did to head to Slytherin's carriage. Not that it was actually assigned to them, but none of the other houses ever tried joining them there. Pansy hung close to his side, arm looped through his, shooting snooty glares at the students who didn't step aside quickly enough.

Blaise held the carriage door for them as they arrived, and he slid it closed behind them. The compartment was a series of open booth seating, and the three of them went over to where Theo and Daphne were waiting. Blaise scooted in by Daphne, and Pansy slid onto the other side of the booth.

Draco sat beside her and turned to the side, laying back so his head was on her lap. Without any prompting, she ran her fingers through his hair. Draco closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation.

"Same set of rules this year?" Theo asked.

"They're stricter," Pansy said. "We have to do an extra patrol weekly, and curfew is half an hour earlier."

"That'll stop You-Know-Who from getting into the school," Blaise said, scoffing.

"They warded the perimeter," Draco added, although, what use could wards be against the Dark Lord? As highly as the student body thought of the professors, professors were ants in comparison to the threat against them.

"Why send us back if they feel there's a threat?" Daphne asked.

"Hogwarts has gone to the dogs," Draco said, and crossed his arms across his chest. "We probably won't even be here next year."

He felt an odd sense of relief to be surrounded by people he trusted, to be around only people who knew his place in the bigger picture. He could speak freely, without his mother hushing him for a single misspoken word. Not even words, but expressions, distaste at the Carrows breaking heirlooms for the purpose of seeing them broken. Of having to hide in his room to avoid getting caught up in the torture games the floor below.

War loomed over the horizon, and they were being shushed off to school as if they wouldn't be battling for their lives at any moment. Why bother with Astronomy or Muggle Studies?

"You think the school will be closed?" Theo asked.

"I think none of us will have a reason to come here next year."

Draco didn't bother checking for their reactions. Certainly some of their parents knew what was coming, but judging by their thinly covered whispers, they weren't given the privilege of knowing any plans. Draco was going to be trusted with some sort of mission. Maybe he would be more lenient with them and let they aid him in some little way.

Draco tried to drift, but Crabbe's voice boldly broke the silence.

"Who're you?"

Given not even Crabbe could be stupid enough to forget a classmate they'd shared a dorm with for five years, Draco pushed back Pansy's hands to prop himself up.

Across the aisle, Draco spotted the student Goyle had directed the question to. Draco vaguely recognized him, a boy about their age, slender, sandy hair, and a haughty expression in his dark eyes. He regarded Crabbe as though answering the question wasn't worth the breath, but eventually said, "Thomas McGruder."

It rang more of a bell than his face had.

"You picked a fight with Potter back in third year," Draco said.

And then disappeared the year after.

"I did," Thomas said to Draco with only slightly less disdain.

"I thought you were transferred to Durmstrang," Millicent said.

He and Thomas hadn't been close, and he never bothered to ask after where he went. Seeing the derision aimed at them all, he wasn't keen to change his mind. If they could hope for anything, it was that he had been held back a year, and would be the fifth years' problem.

"My father moved us back to the country this year."

It was odd timing, and Draco didn't think he knew the name McGruder. If he had been one of the Death Eaters constantly moving in and out of the Manor, Draco hadn't been introduced.

"Never heard of a transfer," Goyle said.

"They aren't common," Thomas said, and turned his attention back out the window.

Draco lay back down so Pansy could resume playing with his hair. He stared at the luggage rack overhead, playing through scenarios, over how adding an extra person to their dorm would work. Back during their first years, their dorm room had six beds, but they spread out since then. They didn't have the extra space to add back the bed they'd lost.

Logistics aside, they didn't know McGruder. Their private conversations would have to be limited in the one place in school they were meant to be given privacy.

"At least NEWTS aren't this year," Pansy said, and Draco chose to let her guide the conversation towards something that interested her more. Planning for seventh year exams was even more trivial than going through the motions of a school year bordering a war. And the alternative was gossiping about a transfer student Draco didn't intend to bother befriending.

"What classes did you decide on?" she asked Draco.

He knew her well enough to know the intention behind the question. Pansy wanted to predict their futures based on their time tables. If he mentioned taking Potions, she would question if he hoped to become an Alchemist. If he mentioned History of Magic, she would assume he wanted to be a Scholar. And more than occupations, she might have been trying to deduce what all he pursued over the summer.

"Certainly not Muggle Studies."

It got his intended response. Pansy's hands stilled only a moment, and then she rushed into talking about her own schedule, which no one had asked her, comparing her least favorite classes with what everyone else said they were taking. After five years of the same classes, there wasn't that much they could discuss.

The only class of any real interest this year was the Apparition lessons being offered in the spring. They would likely prove the most useful to him, since right after the school year ended, he could get his license. It would certainly be more useful than learning to transfigure a wall into a mirror or a soup bowl into a key.

Even Potions felt like wasted time after his summer lessons with Snape. He learned more through one summer's worth of one-on-one lessons than he had in five years of study at Hogwarts. He'd also learned that Snape would no longer be teaching Potions, but would move to Defense this year. Draco had been hesitant about signing on for a class centered around defending against their side of the war, but if Snape taught it, the Dark Lord couldn't disapprove.

Could he?

Draco tried to nap through the rest of the train ride, occasionally waking when Pansy's rhythm shifted, or the conversation grew too loud. He didn't join in to their talks about their summer, to Theo's description of Rome or Crabbe's time in the States. Without being able to discuss his own summer, there wasn't reason to listen to theirs.

Pansy roused him gently as the train came to a stop.

After unloading their belongings, they encountered the first of the changes of the new school year. Students stood in a line to have their bags searched, holding up the line three times as long as typical. Draco tilted his head, staring ahead while all the bags were rummaged through, watching piles of contraband be confiscated. If he wasn't so bored of waiting, he might've found it amusing. The sheer number of fifth years smuggling in firewhiskey was astonishing.

It was much simpler to buy it down at Hogsmeade, then bring it in.

When Draco neared the front of the line, he spotted Potter arguing with Snape. Snape held a folded sheet of parchment, and Potter wouldn't stop reaching for it.

"Cursed objects are not permitted on the Hogwarts grounds, Mr. Potter," Snape drawled. "Even those belonging to the Chosen One."

"It isn't cursed," Potter said, and his voice strained in inflection.

"Carry on. The rest of your things will be taken to your dormitory."

Granger caught Potter's elbow before he had chance to argue further, and lead him towards the carriages. He ranted, turning back once along the path, but otherwise, gave her little resistance. Weasley seemed more ready to pacify him over the loss of a sheet of parchment.

Draco's bags passed with almost no inspection. Snape waved him on despite Flitwick's protest about his father's walking stick. Of everything in his luggage, a walking stick was the least threatening. Draco supposed having Snape not question the five cauldrons he'd been told to bring kept too many questions from being asked. Snape only glanced at the bags before sending him on.

While Pansy's bags were being checked, Crabbe and Goyle came up on either side of Draco. It always took some adjustment to get used to them, and they only seemed to loom bigger with every passing year. Although Draco had gotten taller, they still stood several centimeters over him.

He couldn't complain. After the violence from last year, he needed to keep people close.

"Waste of time being here," Crabbe said.

"You might as well focus on learning whatever will prove of use," Draco said, and spotted an empty carriage. Crabbe and Goyle filled one side of the seats by themselves, and Draco spread out across from them to keep anyone else from joining. It earned a dark glare from Pansy when she tried to catch up, but he'd given her enough attention for the evening. If he didn't share it equally, they all tended to get clingy.

"Learning about plants won't help anything," Goyle said.

"Then you should have studied for your OWLs."

As it stood, they hadn't gotten enough E's or O's to take any of the more interesting classes this year. They were stuck retaking last year's course load, only the core classes, with little hope of getting acceptable NEWTs. Draco's grades had been high enough for his choice of classes, and he selected the most practical—Charms, Potions, Defense, Arithmancy, and Transfiguration. And he only kept Transfiguration to maintain a full schedule.

"Tests shouldn't matter," Crabbe mumbled.

"To change that, you'd need to pass all the tests and become headmaster."

They'd be lucky to scrape together work on Knockturn Alley. They could scare off rowdy patrons at The White Wyvern as long as they didn't have to wait on customers.

"What's wrong with you?" Goyle asked.

"Nothing," Draco had to admit, although staring up at the castle, it felt like there were dozens of other answers to that question. "Though I'd say our feelings about this year are mutual."

The persistence of his complaints neared the point of being unbecoming, and he had bigger things to concern himself with. Any day, he would be receiving his first assignment, and that was better than hiding in his bedroom, isolated and bored.

"Bet you'd rather be home," Crabbe said.

"Jealous you weren't invited?" Draco asked, as though he had done anything worth earning jealousy. Crabbe let himself be led on too easily.

"I'll be of age soon," Crabbe insisted. "December."

"I recall."

Goyle knew well enough not to egg on Crabbe, and met Draco's gaze. "What are we meant to do this year?"

"Nothing's changed."

"Least you get to be a prefect," Crabbe said. He frowned when the cart hit a pothole, jarring them.

Draco rolled his eyes and turned to watching the first years boat across the lake. Their stark interest in Hogwarts was more entertaining than a conversation with these two. He had been as excitable as them at one point, but their excitement felt out of place during a war. They weren't too young to have been told what was going on.

"The professors expect us to hold to the rules more seriously."

"And you plan to?"

Draco shrugged. "It's an extra patrol weekly, almost as if they don't want us to have time to study."

"Keep your nose in a book and you'll transfigure into one," Crabbe said.

Draco chose not to point out he hardly spent an excessive time reading, but he couldn't expect either of them to understand. Their family names carried little weight, but nothing compared to Malfoy. With Lucius in Azkaban, Draco couldn't slip. With whatever methods available to him, he had to redeem his family name.

"We should kill Potter for what he did to us last year," Crabbe said.

Not thinking about it had gotten Draco this far. The hours they had been left of the train, half transfigured and deformed, had been some of the worst of his life. Potter and his lackeys always met traditional hexes and insults with overly escalated spells. They met every verbal insult with physical violence.

Even being beaten bloody on the Quidditch pitch in fifth year hadn't been as traumatizing, and that had been in front of the school. Over one of his less stinging quips.

No other group in the school got to get away with violence without consequence.

"We can't," Draco said, facing Crabbe now, instead of the boats.

From what Draco heard of the meetings, the Death Eaters had one main rule. Potter belonged to the Dark Lord.

"He'd be glad if—"

"It isn't our place to assume what he wants."

Even Crabbe couldn't be stupid enough to do something reckless enough to get himself killed.

At the castle, Goyle got out of the carriage first and helped Draco step down. With tensions high after the previous year, Draco used Crabbe and Goyle as a shield, walking between them to keep the rest of the student body at bay, including Pansy. He never did manage to keep her at a distance for long.

Even with the stress and strain hanging over his head, it was difficult not to feel calmer as he walked into the Great Hall. Through the commotion of students swarming to their house tables, the buzz of voices and greetings, Draco wove his way to his usual seat. He sat with his back to the wall, open to the rest of the room, where he could see everyone, but no one could be behind him.

The others filled in around him, all vying for the closest seat. Draco's spot rarely changed, but theirs did depending on who arrived first, and what mood Draco found himself in.

Draco side-eyed Thomas when he sat with them, but said nothing. Where else was he meant to sit? Back with the third years?

Pansy shoved Blaise aside to take his seat, directly across from Draco.

"Have a good catch up?" she asked.

"Brilliant."

"Who's the gut at the staff table?" Goyle asked, thankfully keeping Pansy from further staking a claim on Draco's time. To encourage the conversation shift, Draco looked to the front of the room. Without recognizing the new face, Draco knew who he was.

"Horace Slughorn," Draco said, pretending he wasn't proud to have information they didn't. "The new Potions professor."

"Why would someone need to take that post?" Theo asked, leaning in towards Draco.

"Professor Snape accepted the position of Defense teacher."

Rumors skittered up and down the table, and people prodded Draco for information he couldn't possibly hope to have. But Slytherin always orbited around him, and he held onto his knowledge and the little power it gave him in that moment. Let them believe he knew more.

"Do you think that means we can take Potions without having an O?" Blaise asked.

"You may still need Professor Snape to clear it," Draco said. "It's his standard, after all."

They waited for everyone to find their seat, and then waited while the first years were lead to the front of the room where they would be sorted. The hat's song this year dragged on, and Draco picked a thumbnail rather than listen to it. It was the same song every year, unity and the unimportance of distinctions between the four houses. He never got over the irony from it being the very thing that separated people.

The sorting took ages, but there were too many first years to get through to get to the feast with any haste. And even once they finally got everyone to a table, Dumbledore stood to give his speech.

Draco propped his chin on a palm, half-listening to the tale of a former student who made choices he didn't agree with. Knowing who the student was send a hush over the room. Although Dumbledore didn't look their way, it was clear which students he directed the speech to.

"It's a very cheery welcome back, isn't it," Theo mused.

Thomas glared towards the podium. Draco had the best view of the entire room, and most faces looked afraid, hesitant, worried, but Thomas's expression was more interesting. It confirmed that his father hadn't returned simply for work.

By the time their food appeared, Draco had been in and out of daydreams for half an hour. If he hadn't napped through the train ride, he should have eaten something. It took restraint to keep from wolfing down everything in front of him.

He said nothing of Crabbe and Goyle's pace. He relied on their size too often to discourage their appetite.

"Potter's already started glaring at you," Blaise said when they got to the pudding.

"I can't fathom why," Draco said, and took a sip of his pumpkin juice. "If anyone has a lingering grudge, it's the three of us."

Crabbe and Goyle nodded.

But he glanced over, meeting Potter's gaze long enough to convey he knew he was being watched. It had become a running theme of each year to find Potter staring at him, although it never amounted to much. Last time Draco instigated anything, he ended up trapped on a luggage rack from the Highlands to King's Cross. He had better things to do this year than worry over squabbles with Potter.

"Don't give him attention," Draco said. "He gets more than enough from the Prophet."

Everyone sitting around him snickered, save for Thomas. At the mention of Potter, Thomas had started staring across the room at the Gryffindor table. His plate hadn't been touched. Judging by the dark expression, he must have been thinking back to the embarrassing stand on the bridge. If he expected to seamlessly reincorporate into the school, he couldn't let past encounters get to him.

Draco knew that better than anyone.

Before dinner officially ended, Pansy reached over to grab Draco's arm.

"Come on," she said, starting to pull him from the table. "We have to show the firsties back."

Standing, he again regretting not turning in the prefect badge. Theo would have made a half-decent prefect, and it would have kept him and Pansy busy several nights a week.

He let Pansy lead, gathering the first years with her too-sweet voice, already working to win them over. Draco gladly let her handle them, giving the tour through the halls and to the dungeons. She kept them clustered into a tight group, not letting any of their curious gazes send them wandering towards the paintings, statues, or ghosts.

He handled himself much better at that age.

"—and be sure to remember the password," Pansy told them when they came to the entrance. "We change it every other Saturday. Right now, the password is Phineas. Don't share it with anyone outside of the house."

When she told them the password, the door concealed in the stone wall opened for them. Draco went into the common room first. The house elves already had a fire burning, and the crackling blocked out the lap of the waves against the window. Neither was loud enough to drown out the traditional speech about how Slytherin was a house of students who wished to excel. Pansy acknowledged the negative outlook many people held, and assured them Slytherin wasn't all about the dark arts. When she threw out the fact Merlin had been in Slytherin, the most fidgety of them calmed.

She was halfway through sending them to their dorms when the rest of the house began to arrive.

Pansy had things sorted, and Draco broke away to join the others. They took the armchairs around the fireplace, and when Draco sat in the middle of one, Goyle and Blaise sat on either side of him. Millicent sat on the arm.

"Did the snake scare them?" Blaise asked, nodding to the stone engraving over the fireplace.

Pansy came over, arms crossed. "Not half as much as Draco's insistence on saying nothing."

"I didn't memorize the speech."

Instead of taking an open seat, Pansy sat on the floor, leaning against the table to face Draco.

They usually eased up on the hovering come winter holiday.

"They won't feel you're approachable," Pansy said. "As a prefect, they should be comfortable approaching you."

"I don't want them to."

"It isn't like he currently looks unreachable," Millicent said.

Draco lifted a hand, acknowledging her point. The social life within Slytherin centered around him, and Draco was never alone. It didn't send the impression he wanted to be left alone.

Left alone by first years, maybe.

"Draco, you still haven't told us about your summer," Pansy said. "Did you travel at all?"

"My father was sent to Azkaban."

Of course they didn't travel. He hardly left the Manor. His home had been swarmed with Death Eaters and everything in his life was about the Dark Lord's purpose. They weren't summering in Madrid.

Pansy was saved by the door opening, and Snape swept into the room, Thomas close beside. Given that Snape almost never came into their common room, it cast a silence over everyone who had lingered.

"With Mr. McGruder's return this year, there will be some rearranging to the boy's dormitory," Snape droned, as though he wanted to be anywhere else. Thomas surveyed them, gaze lingering too long on Draco.

"Your dorm is no longer an appropriate size for the six of you," Snape continued. "The school has opened a second room for two of you to move into."

That was essentially a private room. Draco knew there weren't any empty rooms in Slytherin house, but given the fact Hogwarts produced a room out of nowhere for Potter last year, adding on a room didn't seem like an extreme.

"What room?" Pansy asked, even though this didn't affect her at all.

"A new room has been added at the end of the boy's hall. In the interest of preventing further disruption, Mr. Goyle, Mr. Crabbe, Mr. Zabini, and Mr. Nott, you'll return to your regular room. Mr. Malfoy's bed has been moved."

The others protested in expression alone. Draco suspected they might have voiced their complaints if anyone else had been chosen, but they had the added benefit of the additional space in their room. They were still getting extra space and privacy.

"This way, Mr. Malfoy, Mr. McGruder."

Draco elbowed enough space to get up, and followed Snape down the hall where the old dorm room was, but now, where there used to be a portrait of Salazar Slytherin, there was now an additional door.

"Where was the portrait moved?" Draco asked.

"It's in the headmaster's office, until it agrees on a new location."

Snape opened the room to the new dorm. The room was much smaller than the one Draco spent the last five years in, but for two people, it was technically still more space. There was a fireplace on the wall opposite the two beds, decorated with the traditional serpent engravings. They even had a private bathroom on the far end of the room.

"I trust, Mr. Malfoy, that you'll recognize it's your position as a prefect that granted you this privilege."

"Of course, Professor."

Draco didn't care what the reason was. He could put up with McGruder if it meant a quiet place to study, where everyone wasn't vying for his attention.

Snape gave them both a final look before exiting, shutting the door on his way out. Draco's trunk had been set by the bed closer to the door, and he began to unpack.

Thomas went to the other bed to do the same.

"I'm sure you would have preferred to stay with your friends," he said.

"I see them plenty as is."

His trunk was more of a mess this year than previous ones, and a stack of cauldrons clattered when he tried taking out his night clothes. His mother insisted he bring an excess of cauldrons, potions tomes he couldn't imagine needing for his classes, and double the parchment and quills he tended to pack. It left less room for necessities, and he tossed the few toiletries he'd brought onto his bed to continue working through his trunk.

"You all seem close."

"Durmstrang didn't promote house bonding?" Draco asked, only half-listening.

"They don't seem inclined to leave you alone."

Draco scoffed. "What does that matter?"

"They must trail around you relentlessly."

"Is that a problem?"

He heard footsteps, then his hairbrush dropped when Thomas pushed him back against the wall, pressing his wand under Draco's chin. Draco's own wand was useless on his pillow.

"What do you think—"

The wand pressed harder, forcing him to lift his chin.

"You've been marked for service to the Dark Lord," Thomas said, and reached for Draco's left arm.

"Get off me."

Thomas did, but when he stepped back, he waved his wand at himself. He transformed, growing taller, leaner, losing hair and paling. At the first sight of red eyes, Draco averted his gaze, not daring to step away from the wall Lord Voldemort had shoved him against.

He couldn't be held accountable for disrespect when he didn't know who he was speaking to.

He couldn't.

"It's time for you to begin your work for me, Draco," Voldemort said. "Privacy will be paramount."

Snape knew. He put Draco in the private room. He arranged for Draco to be here, at the Dark Lord's service. It was the first time Draco had been alone with Voldemort. Even when he was branded, there had been dozens of people in the room.

"How may I help, my lord?" Draco asked, keeping his gaze down. He heard his parents receive orders many times and did his best to mimic their wording.

"I intend to have my Death Eaters infiltrate the school," Voldemort said. "A feat of that size will take time. While I pose as a student, you will handle the menial tasks for me."

Draco inclined his head deeply.

"Severus tells me you are able to brew advanced potions."

"He's an excellent teacher, my lord."

"He will procure the ingredients necessary to brew polyjuice potion. You'll ensure I have a continuous supply."

He assumed menial tasks meant homework, and adding daily brewing on top of that would mean a constant effort. But Draco would do everything he was told. His family already lost too much.

"Severus said he taught you a brew that will last more than an hour."

"He did, my lord, and sent his notes with me."

Which explained the contents of his trunk and his mother's insistence. She knew exactly what this year would entail for him.

Long fingers gripped his chin, bringing Draco's gaze up to meet red eyes. Voldemort stood a head taller than him, and the intensity bearing down gave no leeway to look anywhere else.

"Who taught you Occlumency?" Voldemort asked, maintaining his hold on Draco's jaw.

"Aunt Bellatrix."

"Open your mind," came the cold order, and Draco struggled to obey. The first tenant of Occlumency was always shutting out external forces, and lowering his defenses took as much effort as raising them the first time.

At the first waver, Voldemort ripped through, tearing into every thought resting on the surface, but burrowing deeper into the memories and ideas he buried. Flashes of the memories blinded him, sharp and sudden, Pansy playing with his hair, Narcissa holding him at King's Cross, Potter staring from across the Great Hall. Voldemort tore through his mind, uncovering memories of Snape lecturing Draco over the summer, Draco watching the Death Eaters torturing a muggle family they'd kidnapped, and memory upon memory of the horrors he'd witnessed over the summer.

His head throbbed to the point his eyes blurred, and when his mind was returned to him, he felt a drip of blood on his upper lip.

"You will never close your mind to me," Voldemort said. "You fought."

"Forgive me, my lord. It wasn't intentional."

Learning to reopen his mind would take practice. For now, he panted as if he'd just finished the first Quidditch training after a summer off.

"Begin the first brew," Voldemort said, finally releasing Draco. "The first set of ingredients are in the black trunk."

Traditionally, he spent the first night of a new year in the common room, catching up with everyone and sharing whatever drink Blaise brought in. But Draco nearly tripped over himself on his way to the trunk, pushing aside any thoughts of a typical year. He couldn't think of anything else, not while rifling through Voldemort's things.

The wall nearest the door had a strip of empty space he could use to set up the cauldrons. It wasn't ideal, but it would have to suffice. Anywhere else would be too visible from the doorway, and they would only be in Draco's way. He was already sharing a room with Voldemort; he wouldn't encroach on his space any more.

He wiped the blood from his nose on the back of a hand. Voldemort said his plan would take time, which meant possibly months.

If he thought he could complete his task in a month, he wouldn't need Draco to brew more polyjuice. Thoughts of the lessons with Snape came to mind, and he wished that even once, Snape hinted what the lessons would be for. With how tightly his mother held him at the station, she knew what she was sending him off to.

Draco set up the cauldrons, too aware of the red stare piercing his back.