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CHAPTER TWO: Like Father, Like Son

A/N: A bit of time passes, and now it is Christmas. Draco and Adria stay at Hogwarts over the holidays, and now enters the wrath of Lucius Malfoy…

            Wind whistled outside, throwing snow and ice everywhere at Hogwarts. Adria and Draco had both chosen to stay at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays. They had recently been snogging in one of the Common Room chairs, like the second day Adria had spent at Hogwarts, and it was time to go to breakfast. Draco rose.

"Shall I escort the beautiful miss to breakfast?" he asked, arm outstretched. Adria smiled and stood. Draco placed his muscular arm around her, and they trotted off to the Great Hall to enjoy breakfast.

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Crabbe rolled up his finished parchment, and grunted at Goyle to follow him. They went to the Owlery, and found a strong-looking school owl. Crabbe tied the parchment to its leg.

"Take this to Lucius Malfoy," Goyle whispered to the owl. He pulled a bit of toast from his pocket and fed it to the tawny owl, while Crabbe paced back and forth across the Owlery.

"You don't suppose it'll, you know, bother Mr. Malfoy that we send this to him, do you?" Crabbe asked Goyle in a hushed voice.

"Shut up Crabbe, you don't know what you're talking about. You know all the Malfoys love 'pleasant news.'" Goyle replied, obviously not worried at all.

"Fine then. Off you go." Crabbe instructed the owl as he released it into the black night sky.

They headed back to the Slytherin dungeons, failing an attempt to act as conspicuous as possible. Neither one of them wanted Draco to know about the letter they'd just sent to his father.

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            After their breakfast, Adria and Draco decided to take a stroll about the grounds. They walked all the way to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Draco playfully pulled Adria into a little clearing in the trees. They snogged for a bit, and cuddled up near a portable fire Draco had conjured for them. They enjoyed the weather, since the snow fall had slowed. Later, they returned to the castle. They had lunch together in the near-empty Great Hall. They ate warm stew and rolls, and each had a peppermint humbug afterwards. Their holidays together seemed to be going quite well, especially with the increased privacy because of the holiday. Adria and Draco seemed to be soul mates, that is, if either of them possessed a proper soul.

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            It was Christmas morning, and Draco had taken the trouble to wake up before Adria did. He took the present he'd gotten her from his trunk, snuck into her dorm, and placed it in her pile of presents. He noticed she had nearly as many as he did, which was very rare because, as everybody knew, his father was quite rich.

            Looking at his watch, Draco realized it was only four in the morning, and Adria wouldn't be waking up until nearer to seven. He decided to go back to his bunk for a while and rest a bit more. He fell back into a deep sleep.

            Draco was in his room in the Malfoy mansion. He could hear his father, Lucius, and his mother, Narcissa, fighting… again. At first, he thought nothing of it, because they quarreled all the time. But then there was the screaming. Then Narcissa, shrieking in pain. The innocent Draco ran to the living room to see what was going on. His father had his mother by the throat, choking her. Draco screamed, "MUMMY! Daddy, don't!' and Lucius realized Draco was watching. "Go back to your room, now, boy. Now!" he yelled. Draco hid behind a chair and watched in horror as his father began to punch and beat his mummy. Blood began flowing from her nose and mouth. Lucius gave her two great blows to the stomach, and she started coughing up more blood. "Clean that [edited] blood up off my floors, now, woman!" Lucius screamed at Narcissa, threatening to break every bone in her body if she didn't obey him at once. By this time, little Draco was crying, but he wasn't heard over Lucius's yelling and Narcissa's loud shrieks. Draco could take no more of this. He snuck to his room and cried; he cried until no more tears would come. Then his father came stomping down the hallway. "I thought I told you to stay in your room!" he roared, accenting each syllable with a slap to the behind. "Don't hurt my mummy like that!" Draco cried, and Lucius threw him to the other side of the room. "DON'T EVER, EVER TALK BACK TO ME, DRACO NYASUS MALFOY!" he exploded, and gave Draco a near-fatal punch in the chest.

And then Draco woke up, tears on his cheeks, from the terrible flashback of his highly abusive father he'd just had. Looking at his watch, he realized it was 6:30. He dressed, and went to the bathroom to wash the tears away; hopefully the cold water would carry the pain with it. He reminded himself that his beautiful Adria would wake soon, and couldn't help but give a bit of a smile.

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After opening their presents, Draco and Adria went, hand in hand, to the Great Hall for breakfast. A single black owl flew in at post time, and dropped a black envelope with scarlet edges on Draco's plate.

"What's that, Draco, baby?" Adria asked him.

"I'm not sure, but it's sure to be something pleasant since you're here to open it with me." Draco smiled. He immediately recognized the seal on the back of the envelope. 'I wonder what father would want, sending me a peculiar letter on Christmas,' Draco thought. He pulled the seal open, and was immediately taken aback by his father's screaming voice, only twenty times louder than it should have been.

"God [edited] it, Draco!!!! What in the world are you doing, wasting all your time on some stupid prat of a girl from Pulchritude?!!!?! Blithering idiot!!!! I told you, you [edited] well better be careful choosing who your friends are!!!!! And what about Crabbe and Goyle?!!!???! You've completely abandoned the two!!!! I will be stopping by the school soon for business, and you and I will be having a little chat!!!!!!!!!!!! And if you know what's good for you, you'll leave that stupid git girl of yours behind!!!!!!!!! You are all too lucky you and that girl can only hear this Black Howler, because if anyone, ANYONE heard about you and your [edited] nonsense, the Malfoy family name would be destroyed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you understand me?!!!??? DESTROYED!!!!!!!!!"

Adria, in an attempt to cheer Draco up a bit, said, "At least you and I are the only ones who heard that. I'm thankful for whoever invented the Black Howler." Clearly, it didn't help Draco. He got up, breakfast half eaten, and stormed off to the Slytherin Common Room.

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About five minutes later, Adria decided to return to the dungeons to check on Draco. She did all she could to keep her courage up; it was hard to believe that none of the other students in the Great Hall had heard what Lucius Malfoy had to say. She arrived at the Common Room, and slowly entered. After a bit of silence in which Draco didn't notice her standing there, she spoke.

"Draco, love, everything's going to be all right. I know it is. We've got each other, and that's all we need." She said in a pleading tone of voice.

"You don't understand." Draco grouched at her. "My father doesn't get angry. He gets vicious." He sat in a chair with his back to Adria, staring intently at the flames in the fireplace.

"I'm sure he doesn't mean you any harm," Adria insisted, sitting on his lap.

"Get off me!" Draco insisted sternly, and she promptly jumped up. "What is wrong with you? Don't you understand? All my father ever cares about is earning a good name for himself! He never stopped once to think about me! And what do you do? You stand there like a Pixie trying to tell me it'll all be all right!" Draco yelled at her, his volume rising with every sentence.

"I was only trying to help because I love you, Draco," Adria whimpered.

"Don't give me that [edited], stupid girl!!!" Draco screamed, instinctively slapping Adria hard across the face. Adria stood there a moment, face frozen in a look like she'd just been stabbed in the stomach by the one she trusted most. Eventually, a single tear found its way down her cheek, and she stepped backwards away from Draco, turned, and slipped into the girls' dormitory.They