Draco sat silently in Dumbledore's office, silent tears running down his cheeks. Normally he would have been embarrassed but, at that particular moment in time, he didn't care.

It had been a week since he had killed the only person he had ever cared about. She was gone. Because of her, he would never be the same. Whenever his thoughts went back to that night he could hardly breathe. He felt like everything was closing in on him, slowly but surely suffocating him. Draco sat back in the chair and his eyes met the headmaster's for a brief second before he averted them back to the floor.

For the past hour, Dumbledore had Draco relate to him the events that led up to Alexa's death. It was the first time he had ever told anyone his account of the events and Draco had told Dumbledore everything he knew, not leaving out anything.

After he, Ron, and Hermione had killed Alexa, he and Hermione ran back to Hogwarts to get help. They left Ron there to keep and eye on Harry. When they had returned with Professor McGonagall and Hagrid, they were shocked to find Ron lying stunned on the ground and Alexa's body missing. When Ron came to, he told them the dreadful details of what had happened. Shortly after himself and Hermione left, someone had came into the clearing. Ron had concealed himself behind a tree but cried out when he saw that it was crawling with spiders. The person had Alexa flung over his shoulder and was about to leave when he heard Ron's cry. Obviously, he had stunned Ron and took off with Alexa's body.

"Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco was jerked back to reality as Dumbledore addressed him. He sat up and forced himself to look at the old man. A bandage was wrapped around his head and there was a small scar on his wrinkly cheek but Draco could see that his eyes still held that cheery glow. 

"Mr. Malfoy I thank you for what you did in those woods last week. Who knows what could have happened if you, Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger had not shown up. As you presumably know, the ministry has investigated the spectacle and has deemed that we are safe. Whomever it is that took Alexa's body can bring no further harm our way through her. I think that both you and I know that no one can survive the killing curse. Your mother had owled me requesting your presence at the funeral for your father. I told her that it wouldn't be a good idea for you to skip school but that it was your choice."

Draco thought about this for second. Could he bring himself to go to his father's funeral? The man who had beaten him and probably hadn't loved him? The man who had relentlessly treated both him and his mother as dirt?

"I'm always there for you Draco. No one will ever love you like I do."

No he couldn't go to that funeral. He wouldn't go.

"No I don't think it would be wise for me to attend the funeral. But, I will owl my mother and tell her myself."

Dumbledore let out a short sigh of relief.

"I was hoping you would say that."

The headmaster rose from his seat.

"Well Mr. Malfoy I believe it is about time for dinner. Would you like to walk down to the Great Hall with me?"

Draco laughed to himself. He had been weak enough for one day. What would people think if they saw him enter the Great Hall with the headmaster? Meager Weasley and Mudblood Granger had surprisingly already told nearly the whole school that he was some kind of hero.

"No thank you, I'm not hungry just yet."

Dumbledore smiled.

"Very well then, goodnight Mr. Malfoy."

Draco nodded and then started towards the staircase. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he turned in the direction of the dungeons, heading for the Slytherin common room. He wasn't ready to face the stares and whispers of his fellow classmates. He had never really cared what people thought of him until recently, until Alexa was gone. As he walked, Draco's thoughts turned to Alexa. What if she had been brought back to life? Would she come to kill him as she had Lucius? No, Draco pushed the thought from his mind, she had loved him; hadn't she? As he reached the wall that hid the entrance to the common room, he heard a voice whisper to him.

"Hvorfor did du avreise meg? Tror du ikke elske meg?"

Draco whipped around expecting Alexa to be standing behind him but to his consternation, she wasn't. He turned back around to the wall and tapped three bricks with his wand. The wall fell back to reveal the Slytherin common room and Draco stepped inside. Waiting for him squished into a green leather couch was Crabbe and Goyle. When they saw him they got up and walked over to him, blocking his path to the dormitories. Crabbe looked from Draco to Goyle then spoke. Draco was actually surprised the dumb boy could actually string words together into complete sentences. He had never been much of a talker.

"We're really sorry about your dad Draco. He was a great man. Why did you kill Alexa if she was going to help Voldemort? It's what your dad would have wanted. Anyways, do you want to come down and eat with us?"

Draco rolled his eyes in disgust. He was getting angry. The two didn't know the first thing about his father!

"No you fat bloke I don't want to eat with you and your idiot companion! My father was not a great man and he deserved to die! Tell me Goyle was he great when he came home and beat me and mother?! Huh! Was he great then? Alexa didn't want to aid him or Voldemort! You ignorant fool!"

Draco pushed past the two boys, who dumbfoundedly watched him go down the stairs to the boy's dormitories. Draco went into the sixth year's room and collapsed on his bed, exhausted.

That night he had a dream.

He was walking through a forest. All around him were the sounds of people crying out in pain. He started to run afraid of what was there in the wooded area with him. Even though he couldn't see it, he knew that there was something there. Something that was waiting for him to stumble so it could devour him. He ran and ran until he came to a clearing. In the clearing sat Alexa. She was dressed in white robes and held a dead eagle in her arms. The blood from where the eagle's throat had been cut was dripping onto her robes, turning them a deep crimson. She didn't open her mouth, only looked at him yet Draco knew what she was saying. He had to return. He turned and ran until he was out of the woods. In front of him, at the edge of the woods, was a roaring blue fire and he could see Alexa dancing in it. She held out her hands for him to join her. He took them and stepped into the fire...

******

"Draco darling wake up."

Draco sat straight up in his bed a scream caught in his throat. His usually perfect hair was a tangled blonde mess and he was sweating profusely. Draco looked over to his mother who was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at him with tears glistening in her eyes.

"You were having another nightmare. Lie back and try to get some sleep. I'll go get you a cup of tea to calm you down."

Ever since his father's death, Draco had been plagued with nightmares each and every night. The nightmares had been so bad that he had come home from Hogwarts three months early and would have to make up the work he didn't do during that summer or repeat his fifth. As the nightmares got progressively worse, Draco knew he couldn't go back. After the horrendous incident in the woods, Potter and his friends were painfully nice to him and he was as evil as ever in return. He didn't want them thinking he had wanted to help Potter. He hated him. In his father's will, the Malfoy fortune had been left to him and with some of the large inheritance, Draco and his mother moved to a small flat in muggle London, trying to forget all about magic and the mess it had made of their lives.

Narcissa Malfoy had hoped that getting away from all the magic would stop her son's graphic nightmares but it didn't help. Almost every night she would be awaken from her sleep by her son's screaming. Even though he refused to tell her, Narcissa knew that the subject of Draco's dreams was usually Alexa. Narcissa had always liked Alexa, even after she had killed Lucius. It wasn't a bad loss and she had brought out the best in Draco. Even though the days were fine the nights always brought tears. She had tried to enroll Draco in a muggle high school but he wouldn't go. He just sat at home watching the world pass him by.

She couldn't stand to see him like this. It was worse than when she used to stand by watching Lucius beat him. Narcissa brought the tea tray into Draco's room and promptly dropped it as she saw the empty bed. She went over to the now open window which was letting in the warm summer breeze. Taped to the window was a note written in her son's neat script:

Mother,

I have to go and find out what really happened, I can't wait any longer. The dreams are telling me something. I have to go back into the wizarding world to find the answer. Don't ask me how, I just know it. Please don't worry about me, I will be fine.

Draco

Narcissa stood by the window with tears streaming down her face. She thought about all the dangers he could encounter if he went back into the wizarding world. Why did this have to happen? They were on their way to being alright. She decided that she wasn't going to go after him but was going to wait for him to return to her. He was a smart boy, he was her boy. He would come back. Wouldn't he?