I decided to post two chapters to give you guys a little more so you can see if you want to keep reading or not... plus I have two chapters to post so, may as well! I own nothing again!

Father dropped Draco off at the Malfoy manor and pulled back out of the driveway without as much as a goodbye. He couldn't live there anymore, as he had been placed in Azkaban after it was proven he was a Death Eater, but had been sprung out by Voldemort himself. Even Draco didn't know where his father resided, as he had informed the Ministry of Magic, even under the influence of powerful Veritaserem. No, the only thing the teenager knew was that he was much happier now that he didn't have his over-expecting father breathing down his neck and criticizing his every movement.

Not that he was happy anymore.

He held his stinging arm.

He knocked three times on the gold knocker on the vast oak door, then whispered the family password of the moment: Initiate. He stepped inside the house, which in the day was cooled from the heat of summer by a nice little spell. However, it got chilly at night, so the spell just made Draco feel, if possible, colder. Not that it was that cold outside; the majority of the chill was coming from inside him. Before he could even remove his cloak, his mother swooped down on him, dressed in sparkling mauve robes that clung to her figure, suggesting that Draco was not the only male currently in the house.

"Draco, darling!" she said too cheerfully, pulling him into a rather unaffectionate, too-proper embrace. "How'd it go? Let me see it!" Unhappily, but knowing he had no other option, Draco took off his cloak and pulled up the sleeve of his robes to reveal what was causing his arm to burn and his insides to freeze.

Mother gasped and ran her fingers over the black form of a skull with a snake in its mouth that had been burned into her son's forearm. It clashed oddly with his light skin, making him look paler than ever. She smiled and hugged him again, perhaps slightly proud that her son didn't chicken out.

Draco distinctly heard a muffled cough from the kitchen, as though the person producing it was trying very hard not to be heard. Mother tensed.

"Up to bed with you, Draco, you need your rest," she said quickly, a lot of the fake warmth she often used with him disappearing. She gave him a little shove toward the stairs, and Draco, knowing exactly what was going on and not wanting to be downstairs anyway, climbed them without so much as a goodnight.

"Mum and her men and her wine," he smirked to himself, opening the door of his bedroom. His bed was a four-poster with black hangings, a black silky bedspread, and green pillows. He collapsed upon it gratefully. At his feet was a parchment envelope. Knowing what it was, he picked it up, leaned back into the comfort of his many silk pillows, and slit it open, a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Hogwarts…. Sixth year…. September first…. Yeah, yeah," he mumbled aloud, tossing that bit of parchment aside and opening a second envelope placed inside the first. Just what he needed after the worst day of his life; his exam results.

He carefully unfolded the parchment, wanting this to take as long as possible. "Please, please let it be good…."

O.W.L. Test Results

Draco T. Malfoy

Slytherin

O=Outstanding

E=Exceeds expectations

A=Acceptable

P=Poor

D=Dreadful

Charms……A

"Damn Potter, that's all his fault," Draco said to himself.

Transfiguration……E

"Good," he said, though he didn't think he deserved it. He wasn't great at that subject but his father had known that particular tester.

Herbology……E

Defense against the Dark Arts……P

"What the hell…?" He'd done so well in Umbrige's class, sucking up and everything. "Oh well," he said sarcastically. "It's not like Father will yell at me for that one, since I'm supposed to do Dark Arts, not defend against them."

Potions……O

He grinned wider than he had in days. That's exactly what he had been hoping for.

History of Magic……A

Astronomy……E

Arithmancy……A

"Pretty good, that subject's hard."

Theory of Spell Creation……E

Care of Magical Creatures……D

"'D'!?!?!" he shouted, sitting bolt upright. "'D'!? What kind of awful teacher is that stupid Hagrid, anyway? A 'D'? That's insane!!!!!"

"Is everything ok up there, Draco?" he heard his mother call.

"Uh, yeah!" he shouted back. Whoops, got a little carried away there. He often talked to himself, but he didn't usually yell.

Fuming, he put his grades aside and picked up his new courses. His N.E.W.T. classes were Potions, Transfiguration, and Charms (though it was common knowledge that Flitwick let anyone into his N.E.W.T. class, so that wasn't much of an achievement), and he was also taking The Art of Creating Potions, Theory of Spell Creation II, and Arithmancy II. He was going to need a whole new set of books. Perhaps he could convince Mother to bring him to Diagon Ally tomorrow; if she wasn't too tired that is, he thought bitterly.

But Mother was not too tired, and the next morning, Draco stood outside in the bright sunlight of Diagon Ally, the streets positively buzzing with the voices of other Hogwarts students and their parents.

He spotted his friend Pansy Parkinson outside Fortescue's ice cream place. "I'll meet you in Flourish and Blotts, Mother, ok? I'm going to get an ice cream. Don't worry I've got gold," he added when his mother started digging in her purse. He set off; his swaggering stride returning as he realized his pain would be over in a few short days. He was going back to Hogwarts, to his friends. His father may control his every waking moment here, but at school he was free. Everybody knew his name and either loved or despised him and he didn't much care which, as long as he was stirring one of these emotions in the people around him. He wasn't a "weak boy" there.

He sauntered over to the table at which Pansy was sitting in the shade of a large umbrella, immersed in leather bound book and sucking on the straw of the chocolate milkshake in a tall but half-empty glass sitting beside a stack of papers. He sat down beside her, but she seemed not to notice.

He sat there, smirking, for at least thirty seconds before she looked over the top of her book. She gave a small scream, but smiled when she realized who it was.

"Oh, Draco, hi!" she squealed, putting down her book and giving him an awkward hug from her chair. "Oh my gosh, I didn't even see you there! You scared me to death!" Draco just continued to smirk. He noticed a few things about his friend that were mildly different. Her light brown hair was longer, her face had filled out a bit, so she looked much less like a pug.

"What are you doing anyway?" he sneered. Pansy sighed.

"Last minute homework." Draco shook his head then gave an exaggerated cough in which was hidden the word "procrastinator."

"Shut up!" she laughed. "You know I hate History of Magic more than anything!"

"That's cuz you have the attention span of a two year-old," he teased.

"Better than having one that never ends." She said, nodding over Draco's shoulder. He turned around and saw a lone, bushy-headed figure going through her seemingly hand-knitted purse and he grinned evilly. Exactly what he needed to make him feel better about everything; a helpless Mudblood to torment.

"How ya doin' Mud… er… Granger?" he shouted across the street. She looked up and upon laying eyes on her attacker, gave him a look that told him plainly how pitiful she thought he was. Pansy was giggling. "Shouldn't be wandering around by yourself should you?" he continued. "I mean, it really isn't safe around here for your kind anymore, now is it? Why don't you come sit with us, I mean, I must say," His voice was positively dripping with sarcasm. "It would be a shame to lose a sexy lady like yourself to some big bad Death Eater." Granger stared at him for a moment, then closed her purse and sat down across from Pansy and next to Draco.

He tried to keep his utter shock from showing on his face.

"It was so nice of you to invite me to sit with you, Draco," said Granger in an overly sweet voice. "I mean, you're right, especially considering that last outbreak of Death Eaters from Azkaban this summer. I believe your father was in that group, wasn't he? How's he doing anyway?"

Draco felt his face get hot with anger. Everything to do with his father was a conflicting sore point, including the fact that he had been sent to Azkaban. He would never forgive Potter for that one.

Draco decided to do the only thing he could think of. He turned his back to her, leaning his head on his hand and started to help Pansy with her essay, blatantly ignoring that Granger even existed. She kept rambling on however, about Death Eaters. He tried very hard to block her out. Pansy opened her mouth as if to defend him, but he gave her a meaningful look and she was quickly silenced.

"Hermione?" said a familiar voice after a long while.

Is it Weasly? Draco wrote on the side on Pansy's parchment. Yes, she wrote underneath his untidy scrawl. After debating with himself, he turned around. He couldn't give up the opportunity to torment Weasly.

"Hermione, what are you doing?" the red-head said quietly. Granger beamed at Draco and Pansy then turned to Ron and said sarcastically: "Just chatting with a couple of friends."

"Well if it isn't the legendary Orange Weasel." Draco drawled. "Wait! Don't move, Pansy, you might scare it away. I want to get a picture of it quick." To his pleasure he found that Weasly's ears were turning bright red. Draco continued to watch him as though he were a fascinatingly rare animal and the scarlet tones moved into Ron's face. "Uh oh, I think it's getting mad! Watch out, Pans, in case it lashes out!" Pansy was shrieking with laughter. He hated her laugh, but his love for Weasly's reactions to his bait was greater than his hate for her shrieks.

"Piss off, Malfoy," he spat. Draco gave a mock gasp.

"It's showing signs of intelligence!! This is truly amazing!"

"Ron!" Granger snapped, standing up and grabbing her friend from the back of his t-shirt, as he had just started toward Draco. "Ron, let's go." And looking disappointed, she dragged him off; but not before Draco pantomimed taking his picture.

"Well, I better get goin'," he said to the still giggling Pansy. "Mother's going to be wondering what happened to me." He took a sip of melty milkshake from her straw.

"I'll see you on the train!" she said. He smiled, drank a little more milkshake—it had been very good—and started off for Flourish and Blotts.

He got his books and his potion and spell ingredients, a new cauldron since his was a bit out of date, spare parchment and quills, broom wax, hair gel, everything he would need. He also got a new set of robes, as he was several inches taller than he had been the previous year. New shoes, cloak, and dragon hide gloves as well.

They passed by the new joke shop, owned by those Weasly twins. Loud explosions could be heard coming from inside. The door was lime green and the building around it had been painted in other obnoxious colors so it could not be missed. A neon sign blinking Weasly's Wizard Wheezes hung above the entrance. It was packed with pranksters hoping to get a good deal on the twins' original pranks. He was half tempted to go inside and buy some Skiving Snackboxes for Transfiguration, but imagining what anyone would say if they saw him willingly buying things from the Weaslys, he decided against it.

Draco sat at his window quite sometime after his trip to Diagon Ally, feeling considerably better than he had last night. That wasn't hard to believe, however, since last night had been the worst night of his life, after all.

"Tomorrow," he said to his great horned owl whom he was stroking as he stared out the dark window of his bedroom. "We'll be back tomorrow, Hades.

"I saw Pansy today." The owl seemed to perk up at the sound of her name. "Yeah, you like her, don't you, boy?" Hades hooted softly in response. He smiled to himself at the thought of Pansy seeing him talking so affectionately to the owl. He usually pretended to be annoyed with him. Little did the rest of the Slytherins know, Hades was about the only companionship he had around during the holidays. Well, there was always his family, but neither his father nor his mother was as civilized as the owl.

He screwed up his face. He all of a sudden had a terrible stomachache. He gripped his abdomen with his arms, gasping. "Ow, ow!!" he whispered. The pain was great, worse than falling off his broom. He stumbled over to his bed and collapsed upon it, still breathing heavily. His head was spinning. He had a terrible taste in his mouth, foreshadowing that he would be sick if this didn't stop soon. He moaned in agony.

And then it just stopped. He lay there, curled in a little ball on his bed with tears on his face, gasping. What the hell was that about?

He didn't feel motivated to move out of the comfortable position he was in, to put of pajamas or even get under his sheets. He just stayed, fully clothed, in a little ball thinking about what had just happened to him until he fell asleep.

It seemed he had only been dreaming for a few minutes when he felt rough hands shake him awake. "You idiot!! What are you doing here? How did you miss the Call?" Before even being fully awake, someone smacked him across the head, making thinking even more difficult.

"What?" he said, opening his eyes to see his father standing over him looking angrier than Draco had ever seen him.

"My son," Father said, apparently to himself, hoisting Draco off his bed to a standing position. "What the HELL is the matter with you? You were supposed to be at the meeting a half-hour ago, you stupid boy!" He backhanded his son across the face again, causing him to stagger backwards and fall back onto his bed.

"I didn't feel the Call," Draco said, grabbing a tissue off his bedside table to stem the flow of the blood that had begun to flow from his nose. Then realization hit. "Does the call give you a stomachache? I thought it was just the Mark…?"

"A… stomachache? What the hell are you rambling about, boy?"

Draco looked at the clock. Sure enough, he had been asleep for about a half an hour. "I got a really bad stomachache about a half-hour ago. Could that have been caused by the Call?" Lucius studied him for a moment, then shook his head.

"Perhaps Avery was right. Maybe you were too young. Perhaps your body can't handle the power…." Draco felt his heart stop at the disappointment on his father's face. Terrible as he was, he was Draco's father, and Draco had never wanted anything more that to make him proud, even at the expense of forgetting about who he really was.

"No, Father, it's fine," he lied. "Let's go." Draco walked over to his desk and opened the top drawer, pulling out a black stone with ancient writings engraved into it in red. It would transport him to the Death Eater meetings and back home again. "Meet you there." And with regrets, he said the words "take me to the meeting" and found himself instantly in a large lounge, Death Eaters with their masks pulled up were sitting in armchairs in their usual circle.

Thanks again for reading, and if you want me to love you more, review! Peace.