A/N: Meh.  Here you go.  This one is written only by me, Nuwanda, because as we stated previously, I'm in charge of the Draco angst, Quillow does the Harry angst, and this chapter is primarily Draco angst.  So yeah.  Enjoy.

Disclaimer:  We own nothing.  Seriously.  If we owned any part of Harry Potter, Quillow would be beating up Harry right and left and I would be making Harry and Draco snog all the time, so there you have it.  We own nothing.

Claimer:  Ooh yeah.  Nothing except the haughty ghost servant.  He's of my creation.  I like him.  ;D

Author's Note to follow.

~*~  

Draco stood in front of the mirror in his room, studying himself in his mirror.  His father had insisted that he dress up for the occasion.  He sighed.  He still wasn't entirely sure what was going to happen this night.

There was a light knock on the door.  Draco ignored it.  The door opened slowly and his mother poked her head in.  "Draco?"

"Mum!"  Draco was surprised.   He immediately felt embarrassed.  He had not yet gotten dressed.  He hadn't dealt very well with the cuts on his hands.  While he had bound his hands, he had still done a very incompetent job of it.  Therefore, he was still mainly undressed, not wanting to get blood on his good clothes.  'Father would kill me.'  "MUM!"  This was said with much more urgency as he searched desperately for something to hide his practically naked state.  "Mum, I've got no clothes on!"  His eyes settled on his bed and he grabbed a blanket, wrenching it off the bed and bleeding all over it as he attempted to cover himself.  His mother laughed.

"Draco, it's not like I've never seen you like this before," she said, trying to stifle her giggles.  "I did clothe you as a baby, you know."

"That's different!"  Draco wrapped the blanket still tighter about him.  Narcissa hid the last of her laughter behind one hand. 

"I'm sorry," she managed to say calmly.  "I just came to see if you could use some help healing those hands of yours."

"I don't want them healed," he said abruptly.

"Draco-"

"NO!"  Draco shook his head stubbornly.  "That's what he would want.  He wants me to present a good showing downstairs, to look like the perfect son."  Draco laughed bitterly and clenched his fists, eyes shutting tightly at the pain that action caused him.  Taking a deep breath, Draco opened his eyes, staring at the floor.  "I won't give him the satisfaction."

Narcissa stared at her son.  "Draco may I please-"

"NO!"  Narcissa flinched; Draco sighed.  "No, mum, I'm sorry.  I just don't want to give in to him.  I know I sound stupid and stubborn, but any way I can make this harder for him…any way that I can make it harder for him to pretend he has the perfect family…I will.  Even if it makes him hate me even more."

There was a pause.  "It may make him hurt you even more."  Narcissa's voice was soft and full of fear and worry.  Draco looked her in the eye and smiled.

"I can deal with it."  Narcissa still looked unsure.  "Come on, mum."  Draco put on his signature smirk with all the bravado he could muster, trying as hard as he could to make his mother smile.  "You know I'm tough.  I can handle it." 

Narcissa gave a small forced laugh.  Draco stepped closer to her.  "I'll be alright, mum.  Don't worry."  Keeping one hand on the blanket to hold it up, Draco reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair out of his mother's eyes, being extremely careful not to drip blood on her.  Narcissa smiled at him.

"Well, may I at least bandage those hands for you?" she asked.

Draco held up his hands, forgetting that they were all that were covering up his half clothed state by holding up the blanket.  The blanket immediately fell, revealing his pale green boxers to the room.  His eyes widened in horror and he grabbed for the blanket.  "MA!"

"I'm not looking, Draco!" 

He looked up; it was true.  His mother had apparently shut her eyes to keep from embarrassing him.  "Oh."  He coughed, tying the blanket more securely about his waist.  "It's okay, mum.  I'm decent now."

She opened her eyes and he finished what he had started, confidant now that the blanket was securely tied about his waist.  He held his hands up for her to see.  "I started to wrap them," Draco said, "but it didn't work so well."  Both hands were bandaged very haphazardly, wrapped not even half as much as they should have been.  The bandages he used were thin; the blood dripped steadily through them.  His mother sighed.  Draco should have been able to do this well enough on his own, considering the fact that he was ambidextrous and that he had been doing similar things on his own since he was very young.  Draco shrugged unapologetic shoulders as if to say 'what are you going to do?' 

Narcissa sat on the edge of the bed and motioned to Draco.  "Come here."

Smiling, Draco sat down besides her, hitching up the blanket as he did.  He held out his hands and she undid the bandages, rolling her eyes at the slapdash job he had done.  Narcissa vanished the bloody bandages and summoned up fresh clean ones and a small cloth.  She gently wiped the blood from his hands and carefully bandaged them one at a time, sensibly bandaging his fingers separately so that he could still have full use of his hands. 

"There," she said, "finished." 

Draco held his hands up and wiggled all of his fingers experimentally.  He could move all of them nearly as well as if they weren't bandaged at all.  He smiled at his mother.  "Thanks mum."  He gave her a tight hug now that he was sure he wouldn't bleed on her.

"You're welcome," she laughed, hugging him back.

"Draco."

Narcissa jumped at the sound of the voice.  Draco looked up and saw one of the ghost servants hovering next to the bed, looking incredibly bored and haughty…as haughty as a ghost could look, anyway. 

"Yeah, what is it?"

The ghost looked almost affronted at Draco's words and tone.  "Your father awaits your presence in the drawing room."  The ghost let his eyes sweep across Draco's state of undress and looked at the boy disdainfully.  "As soon as you can get yourself suitably attired, that is."  Turning his back, the ghost swept out of the room.

"You'd better go too, mum.  I've got to get 'suitably attired,'" Draco put on the snootiest voice he could.  Narcissa stifled her laughter; Draco sounded exactly like the haughty ghost. 

"Very well, Draco.  I trust that we will see you in a few minutes?"  Narcissa put on a snooty and overly dignified voice herself.

"INDEED, Madame Narcissa," Draco continued, sweeping as low of a bow as he could without dropping the blanket.

"Well then I shall take my leave."  Narcissa fought back laughter; Draco was much better at keeping a straight face than she was.  Sweeping her deepest curtsy, his mother disapparated.  Draco then allowed himself to smile, shaking his head at his mother's obvious attempts to control her amusement.  He let the blanket slide to the floor and wiggled his fingers again.  Both hands were bound almost completely, the wrappings stopping at his knuckles, leaving his fingertips free.  Reaching into the closet, he pulled out an outfit that he knew his father wouldn't exactly love, but one that Lucius would at least approve of.  After dressing, Draco stared at himself in the mirror.  He was wearing gray dress slacks, not the nicest he owned but the most comfortable out of his nice dress pants.  The shirt he had on looked at first glance like a basic white dress shirt.  On a closer examination, it was quite old fashioned.  The sleeves billowed out until the wrists, which were tight and looked as though they should have ruffles on them.  They should have had ruffles on them; Draco had adamantly refused.  The clothes that Lucius would have preferred Draco to wear were all decked out in ruffles.  Draco eyed them and shook his head in disgust.  Looking back to the mirror he adjusted his collar and smiled.  'Not perfect, but it'll have to do.'  Draco pulled on his cleanest and least beat up robes and tucked his wand into his back pocket.  'Just in case…'

Taking one last look in the mirror, Draco took a deep breath and slowly let it out.  "Well, here goes nothing."

~*~

            Draco came slowly down the stairs, hand sliding gently down the banister.  He paused on the last step, eyes sliding tightly shut.  'I don't want to do this.'

            'But you have to,' another part of his mind reprimanded.  'You got bloody Potter into this mess; now you'd better bloody well get him out of it!'

            Taking a deep breath, Draco opened his eyes and took the final step into the hallway.

            "Draco!"

            Turning his head, Draco looked into the drawing room towards the sound of the voice.  A man with black hair and a thick mustache was walking through the crowds of Death Eaters.  Draco forced the widest smile he could manage onto his face.

            "Hello, Mr. Macnair," he said in the most friendly voice he could.  Macnair staggered towards him, laughing heartily.

            "No no, call me Macnair," he said in a booming voice.  "No need to stand on formality, Draco.  I've known you since you were just a little thing.  We go waaaaaaaay back, don't we?"  He shook Draco's hand vigorously and pounded the thin boy on the back in what was obviously supposed to be an amiable way, but practically knocked the boy over.  Draco wrinkled his nose up.  'Drunken bastard.'  Macnair had obviously had one too many…'or five too many.'

            "Yes.  Well."  Draco attempted to think of something polite to say and failed, so he didn't say anything polite.  "Slaughtered any innocent animals or people lately, Macnair?"

            Macnair struggled to focus his eyes on Draco.  'Yeah, he's really been tipping the bottle just a bit…riiight, just a bit.'  The man blinked dubiously at Draco and then began to laugh, slapping Draco on the back again.  "Yeah, yeah, innocent animals, gotcha."

            Not even trying to smile anymore, Draco firmly removed Macnair's hand from his back.  "Right.  Well.  I'd better go greet my father."  Turning on his heel, he walked away with no real purpose.  He had absolutely no intention of greeting his father…he had a few choice words he would very much like to "greet" his father with, but doubted that they would go over very well.  He scanned the room and spotted Crabbe and Goyle's fathers.  'Ah, no need to worry now,' he thought, even his thoughts dripping with sarcasm.  'The party will never lack witty puns with those two around.'  He continued to scan the room and didn't see any unfamiliar faces.  The room was full of Death Eaters.  When Draco was young, he had been inclined to hate all of them before meeting them for the simple reason that his father respected or liked almost all of them. However, as soon as he met them, he discovered that they were all even more disgusting than he had thought.  Any one of these people on their own was bad enough; get an entire room of them and there was enough treachery and malice in the air to make a Norwegian Ridgeback choke on its own disgust.  

            "Something wrong, Draco?"

            Turning, Draco came face to face with his father.  Making sure that his hatred and disgust for everyone in the room was fully apparent, he gave his father his best wide eyed sarcastic expression.  "Why, no," he said, sarcasm obvious in his voice, "You know how much I love your little parties!"

            Lucius' eyes narrowed.  "Careful boy," he said, lowering his voice so that no one but Draco would hear, "you had better not disgrace me tonight."

            Draco arched one eyebrow as if to say 'yeah, right,' and turned to go.  Lucius grabbed his son's arm and spun the boy to face him.

            "I'm serious," Lucius hissed.  "You will be presented to the Dark Lord tonight, and you had better present yourself well.  You will be representing me, and your every word," he clenched his hand tighter about his son's arm, fingers digging in to Draco's flesh, "your every movement, every blink of an eye…it all reflects me.  So you had better make a good impression."  Draco stared at his father, pokerfaced, no sign of the pain his father was causing him apparent.  Lucius released Draco, giving the boy a slight shove away from him as he released Draco's arm.

            Draco turned to go and nearly crashed head on into the ghost that had given him such attitude in his room earlier.  Though he managed to avoid a collision, Draco still managed to wreak havoc.  The ghost was carrying a tray of wine glasses.  Though Draco barely brushed the tray, he still sent the glasses teetering dangerously.  The ghost frantically sought to steady the glasses while Draco watched and smirked.  Turning, he saw his father staring at him, eyes wide and expression on the verge of a scowl.  An idea entered Draco's head.  He turned and looked at the tray, then slowly turned back and looked at his father.  Lucius' eyes widened even more and the scowl was now full blown.  Without breaking eye contact with his father, Draco reached towards the tray and took a glass of wine.  Smiling innocently at his father, he raised the glass in a sort of salute.  "Cheers."  Before Lucius could do a thing, Draco tossed the wine back and down his throat as if it were a shot of some cheap beer.  Quickly he reached out and grabbed another glass, setting the empty one back on the tray.

            Lucius grabbed his son's wrist.  "Oh, no you don't," he hissed.

            "Lucius, is there a problem?"

            Draco felt his father stop moving suddenly.  Glaring at his father, Draco wrenched his wrist out of Lucius' grasp and turned to face the voice.  Looking up, he came face to face with the visage that he had constructed so many times in his mind, the face that he had imagined so often, the person who he had dreamed so many times of meeting, yet whom he had hoped to never meet.

            Lord Voldemort stared down at the pale blonde boy in front of him and smiled.  "Hello, Draco.  Your father has told me so much about you.  I'm so glad to meet you at last."  With his smile making his eyes look like nothing more than slits, Voldemort extended a hand, obviously expecting Draco to kneel and kiss it.  There was a pause as Draco stared.

            "Thanks."  Instead of kneeling and bestowing a kiss, he shoved the wine glass into Voldemort's outstretched hand.  He felt his father's fury radiating towards him, felt the surprise coming from Voldemort.  Lucius put a hand on Draco's shoulder and shoved his son harshly to the floor, forcing Draco to kneel.

            "My apologies, my Lord," Lucius said hurriedly.  "He is somewhat rebellious."  Draco stared up at his father with wide, innocent eyes.  'Rebellious?  Who, me?'

            "Then you should have taught him better, Lucius."  The voice was calm enough, but the hidden reprimand was obvious.

            "I try, my Lord.  I try to mend his behavior through multiple beatings."  Lucius' voice sounded strained.  Draco could tell that the word "beatings" was meant specifically for him; he had earned himself one large and painful beating for this little episode.

            "I like that," Voldemort said.  He looked down at Draco.  The boy could feel Voldemort's eyes on him, sending shivers up and down his spine.  He felt as though his skin were trying to crawl off his body.  He looked up and met Voldemort's eyes without a hint of the fear he felt. Voldemort regarded Draco very seriously. "Are you afraid of me, boy?"

            Draco paused.  "No."

            Voldemort threw back his head and laughed.  "Yes you are, boy.  I can feel your fear, smell it, taste it on my tongue like a fine wine.  But you've got guts, boy.  One would have to have guts to lie so blatantly to my face.  I respect that."  Draco stared at Voldemort.  Returning the gaze, Voldemort let the glass of wine slip through his fingers.  It crashed on the floor, spattering Draco with wine and bits of broken glass, but Draco never flinched, merely kept staring at Voldemort.  The Dark Lord regarded Draco pensively.  "You have spirit as well," he said softly.  "You are rebellious.  I like this boy, Lucius, I like him very much."

            "Thank you, my Lord," Lucius simpered.

            "I would advice you to carry on with the beatings," Voldemort continued.  "This boy is rebellious.  The more he is beat, the stronger he gets.  Beat him until he knows when to be rebellious and when to control himself.  He will make a strong servant one day."  Voldemort looked back to Draco.  Once more, he extended his hand.  Draco stared at it but made no move to take it.  Voldemort looked at Lucius out of the corner of his eye, the slightest movement.  Draco sensed that now was the time to obey.  'Obey now, gain his trust, you'll have more leniency later.'  Leaning forward, he took Voldemort's hand in his own.  He heard the Dark Lord make a small sound of satisfaction, happy that Draco was finally going to comply.  Bending forwards, Draco brought Voldemort's hand to his lips and gently kissed it.  As soon as his lips touched Voldemort's skin, Draco felt as if a bolt of ice cold lightening shot in through his mouth and straight to his head.  He fell forward immediately, hands clutching his head and fingers digging into his temples as though he could claw the feeling out.  Lord Voldemort watched as though this was of the utmost interest.  The lightening swirled through Draco's head and then moved on, shooting through his entire body.  After what seemed like a life age, the burning coldness settled in his right arm, dancing and swimming as though painting swirling patterns inside his skin.  Draco clutched his arm tightly, rocking back and forth slightly to control himself despite the pain.  Finally, it stopped.  Draco kept his head down as he struggled to steady his breathing.  When he was sure he had himself under control, he looked up. 

            Lord Voldemort was staring down at him, amusement curving at the corners of his lips.  Lucius looked slightly proud.  The other Deatheaters looked shocked, even impressed. 

            "What…what was that," Draco managed.

            "Why don't you check your arm," Voldemort answered, smile on his face. 

            Draco felt as though an icy cold hand had just clenched around his heart and stopped it from pumping.  Dreading what he knew he was about to do, what he knew he had to do, Draco stared down at the puffed sleeve of his shirt that hid his arm from view.  Slowly, he took hold of the soft white fabric and ripped it off, tearing it away from his arm.  Where before his arm had been all perfect skin, pale as alabaster, now it was marred by the single presence of one grotesque image:  the Dark Mark.

            "That was most impressive, boy," Voldemort said.  "I have only once seen another servant take the Dark Mark as well as you have.  Most of my servants are quite…immature…about it."  Draco saw the other Deatheaters shift uncomfortably at Voldemort's words.  "The pain is intense, I have been told.  Yet you uttered not a sound."

            Draco was rather surprised at this.  The pain still lingered in his arm.  It shocked him to hear that he hadn't cried out at all.  'I guess that's something to be proud of,' he thought, 'I didn't give them the satisfaction of seeing me broken.'

            "I think that you will turn out to be as loyal as my other strong servant was before he died," Voldemort said.  "You may even surpass him…maybe you will someday surpass young Barty Crouch."

            Draco realized that he should probably feel proud that he had handled this so well, proud that he had impressed the Dark Lord.  He was rather happy to realize that the information did nothing for him at all, except make him disgusted to be compared to Barty Crouch.  He also realized that his father had looked almost proud of him.  'God, if that's what it takes for him to accept me then I'm glad I gave up on wanting his approval when I was four.'

            Voldemort and Lucius looked at each other.  "Well, Lucius, if you're ready."

            "We are ready whenever you are, my Lord."

            Draco suddenly felt incredibly tired.  "Where are we going?"

            "There is just one more part to your initiation."

            "What?!"

            Voldemort gave Draco a wide-eyed look of his own.  "Surely you did not think it was all that easy!  You must prove your loyalty.  My servants each have a task when they are first initiated.  The completion of the task will prove if a servant is truly loyal to me. You must now complete your task."

            Draco sighed.  "What do I have to do?"

            Lucius smiled.  It wasn't a pleasant smile.  "We have a little friend of yours here, Draco…a "chum" from school."

            Draco felt as though the icy hand on his heart was now pumping it, sending his heart pounding nervously through his chest.  'They've got Potter!'  "Oh," he managed, "who?"

            "You shall see."  Lucius grabbed Draco's collar and hauled him to his feet.  "Come."

            Moments later, Draco found himself in the same room he and his father practiced fencing in: the huge ebony marble chamber he had been in not so long before the start of school.  He looked at his father, who looked like the proverbial cat who had swallowed the canary, then scanned the crowd of Death Eaters.  Voldemort stepped in front of him, hands behind his back as he examined Draco.

            "Well then…"  He snapped his fingers.  "Accio!"  Draco's wand flew out of his back pocket and into Voldemort's fingers.  Too late, Draco made a grab for it.  Voldemort smiled, waving a finger in Draco's face.  "Tsk tsk, Draco!  Why this secrecy?"  He flicked his fingers slightly and the wand flew over to Lucius, who tucked it away. 

            Draco stared at Voldemort with a look that wasn't exactly a glare but wasn't very friendly either.  "My wand," he stated. "Why?"

            "You won't be needing it." 

            Undaunted, Draco thrust his hand forwards.  "My wand," he insisted.  "I want it back."

            Voldemort laughed.  "You do have spirit, I will give you that," he said, "but I will not give you your wand.  You don't need it now."  His eyes flicked down and fastened on Draco's outstretched hand.  "What happened to your hands?"

            Draco remembered the bandages then.  He didn't try to hide his hands; he hoped that they would get Voldemort mad at his father again, or maybe convince him to doubt Draco's sanity.  "Nothing," he said.

            Voldemort looked at Lucius.  "One of your beatings, Lucius?"

            "Nope," Draco said, before Lucius could speak a word, "it just kinda happened."

            Voldemort stared at Draco.  "Very well.  If you don't want to tell me then you don't have to…it will only cause you more pain."

            "…pain," Draco echoed, confused.  Voldemort smiled, and then his eyes focused on something behind Draco's back.  Draco felt a deep sense of dread.  Slowly, he turned and felt as though he had been punched in the gut.

            Standing in front of him were two Death Eaters, both grinning fit to split their faces in two.  Stretched in between them like a fish caught by two cats was Harry Potter.  The boy was obviously severely emotionally battered as well as physically.  His eyes weren't focusing well, his glasses were broken, there were bruises on what Draco could see of his body, and he looked as though his mind had departed for parts unknown.

            'Christ,' Draco thought, staring at the bruised and broken form of Harry Potter, 'I am in really deep shit.'

~tbc~

Nuwanda:  Meh.  I don't like doing this without my beloved Quillow here, so this'll be short and sweet.  Here's your chapter.  *tosses cookies to the nice people*  Now REVIEW!