"But Mr. Malfoy, your parents would hardly have approved of-"

Draco held up a hand. "Let's go over this one more time," he said, in a quiet, dangerous voice.

00000

It was two weeks to the day after Ron's funeral, and N.E.W.Ts were a thing of the past. Draco had been summoned to Dumbledore's office at about ten in the morning, to find two respectable looking, middle aged wizards waiting for him there. He'd recognized them at once; the senior partners of the wizarding law firm that had handled his family's affairs for years. They had both stood when he'd entered the room.

"Mister Malfoy," they had intoned as one.

"Gentlemen," he'd returned, taken aback, but not showing it. His eyes had scanned the room and settled on the headmaster, standing beside Fawkes' perch, absently stroking the magnificent bird.

"Draco," Dumbledore had said gently, "these men are here to discuss your inheritance with you. I have taken the liberty of sending for Miss Granger as well; as your fiancée, I believe she has a right to be present for this. I trust you make no objection?"

"Of course not," Draco had replied smoothly, concealing his immense relief at the fact that he would not have to face this ordeal alone. At that very moment, the door had opened once more and Hermione had entered, looking bewildered. She'd been in the library when she had received Dumbledore's urgent message, using the first day after exams were done to launch an exhaustive research effort into wizards and witches who had lost their magic as adults, and whether they had ever recovered their powers. The information she had yielded so far was not encouraging.

The headmaster had smiled benignly at her. "Just so, just so," he'd said. "And now I will be leaving you to your palaver. Take as long as you like," and he'd been through the door and gone before it had even closed behind Hermione.

The four people remaining in the room had pulled chairs up to Dumbledore's large desk, whereupon the solicitors had wasted no time in spreading forms and parchments over every inch of its surface, and informing Draco in their stiff and formal way that all affairs regarding his parents' finances were now in order, and he stood to inherit a rather tidy sum of one hundred and twenty million galleons.

How fortunate that the manor and everything in it had been heavily insured.

Draco had glanced to the side, to see Hermione's dark eyes as wide as saucers. He'd smiled inwardly. She was probably the only girl on earth who would have been dating him for over a year without ever having given a thought to how much he was potentially worth. She was also the only girl on earth who, engaged to him now, wouldn't castrate him for what he was about to do.

Because he wanted no part of his parents' blood money.

"How does my inheritance from my grandparents stand?" he had asked. "The one I came into when I turned seventeen?"

The solicitors had seemed faintly surprised at the question, but had, obligingly enough, dug out the appropriate paperwork. "It stands at twenty- seven million galleons," said the elder of the two, bending over a parchment and reading carefully through a monocle.

Draco had frowned, puzzled. "Has that sum grown since I inherited it?"

"Why, yes," said the solicitor, "it has been very wisely invested. Is that what you would like to do with this new inheritance as well?"

"No," Draco had said decisively, reaching to clasp Hermione's hand in his. "Here is what I want you to do."

00000

Which brought them back to the present, in which the solicitors were staring at him, appalled, as he repeated his plans for the money, in a tone that brooked no argument.

"The only money I am interested in keeping," he said, "is the inheritance from my grandparents, which I came into on my seventeenth birthday. Is that understood?"

"Yes, but Mister Malfoy-"

Draco cut the man off. "As for this new inheritance, this hundred and twenty million galleons. Listen carefully, and you may want to take notes, because I expect my instructions to be carried out exactly." He waited while the younger of the men set a quick-quotes quill over a fresh sheet of parchment before continuing.

"All right," he said then. "The money is to be divided into three equal sums. Forty million galleons are to be converted into Muggle money and donated to the Muggle charity known as the Red Cross, with a stipulation that the money be used only for the purpose of educating Muggle youth in the Muggle lifesaving technique known as CPR." He paused for a moment, waiting for the quill to come to a standstill once again before continuing. "The second forty million galleons are to be donated to Hogwarts, with a stipulation that this sum be used to implement a program at the school whereby all wizarding youth in attendance, ages fourteen and older, shall also be taught the Muggle lifesaving technique known as CPR. Students shall be taught CPR within one month of entering their fourth year at Hogwarts, and shall receive a refresher course during the first month of their fifth, sixth and seventh years as well." Again he paused, allowing the quill to finish writing. "Finally," he said then, "the last forty million galleons shall also be donated to Hogwarts, as a scholarship fund for promising Muggle-born witches and wizards, who would not otherwise be able to afford the school's tuition and fees." He smirked inwardly to himself, hoping that wherever his father was now, he could see exactly what his son was doing; using the family fortune, which had been jealously guarded for generations, to benefit exactly the sort of people that Lucius and Narcissa had despised the most; POOR MUDBLOODS.

Still, it wasn't quite enough. It was time to add insult to injury; to put the icing on the cake. "Furthermore," he said, once the quill had caught up again, "all three of these gifts are to be made in loving memory of my parents. My mother was very gifted with healing magic, you know, and I'm sure would have been most interested in learning about CPR, if, alas, she had ever been given the opportunity, so the donations to Hogwarts will be named thus; The Narcissa Malfoy Memorial Fund for Muggle Lifesaving Techniques, and the Lucius Malfoy Memorial Scholarship Fund. The gift to the Muggle charity shall be made in both their names, with all appropriate fanfare."

He was quiet again then, no longer out of consideration for the quill that was transcribing his every word, but simply now because he was thinking hard, his mind working over any loose ends that could use tying up. At length he asked, "out of the twenty-seven million that I am keeping, how much is not currently tied up in investments? How much is available in hard currency in my Gringott's vault?"

The solicitors, though both looked extremely put out by this point, clearly disapproving heavily of Draco's plans for his new inheritance, nevertheless wasted no time in shuffling through their parchments until they came up with the information Draco desired.

"Just shy of half a million galleons," one of them reported.

"Hm." Draco thought a moment longer, then said, squeezing Hermione's hand as he did so, "better add another million to it; I'm going to be getting married and setting up house very soon. As for the rest of the twenty- seven, carry on with the investments. And as to the one hundred and twenty... I trust my instructions in that matter will be carried out to the letter, and in good time?"

The younger of the men nodded silently as he began organizing the scattered parchments back into neat stacks in preparation for leaving, but the elder, who looked by now as though he'd just been force fed about a dozen large lemons, could no longer contain himself.

"Mister Malfoy," he burst out suddenly, "may I have permission to speak plainly?"

Draco inclined his head slightly. "Please."

"You have to know that your parents would hardly approve of the plans you have made for their money! I have personally served your family for nearly two decades, and I know perfectly well, as you yourself must, that if they could... could see... THIS-" and he seized the parchment that contained Draco's instructions and waved it across the desk at him- "they would be rolling over in their graves!"

Draco leaned forward in his seat and graced the man with a smile so cold, so feral, so deadly, that he shrank back, effectively silenced. "That my good man," said Draco, calmly, but with an unmistakably wicked gleam in his eye, "is precisely the point."

At this, the solicitor was reduced to stuttering, "but- but-"

Draco raised an eyebrow. He did not raise his voice. "Let's get one thing straight," he said matter-of-factly. "My parents are dead. This is now my money, and you are now my- bloody- lawyers. So... once and for all... can you, or can you not, carry out my instructions? If the answer is no, tell me now, so that we can all stop wasting our time and I can start looking for a different law firm to handle my affairs."

The two wizards sitting before him may have felt loyalty to his parents after years of service to the family, and may even have sympathized with his parents' viewpoints concerning Muggle-born witches and wizards- though not strongly enough to have ever participated in illegal activities- (these were upstanding citizens and strictly law abiding men)- but they were, first and foremost, businessmen, and realized that even if he were hereafter to be worth a "mere" twenty-seven million galleons, Draco Malfoy was a client worth keeping.

"We are more than capable of handling your affairs, Mister Malfoy," the younger man said. "We will owl you once it has been done; I think you will quite satisfied at how quickly and competently your orders shall be carried out."

Draco stood, Hermione following suit. "Thank you, gentlemen," he said, as the solicitors both rose as well.

The young couple was through the door, it was just whispering shut behind them, when they heard the older solicitor murmur to the younger one, "no wonder they in the process of disowning him."

Draco stopped stock still, and turned very slowly back around, his foot catching the door, holding it open.

"Procrastination, gentlemen," he said, smiling that same deathly cold smile. "It has been over a year since my parents and I... fell out, if you will. They had plenty of time in which to complete the process, yet they procrastinated. I can lay claim to as many faults as the next man, but thankfully, procrastination was one fault of my parents that I did not inherit from them. I neither indulge in it, nor put up with it. Therefore. I had been going to trust in you to carry out my instructions in your own time, but no longer. You now have thirty-six hours in which to see them completed, or I take my business elsewhere. Good day."

00000

Hermione and Harry shared a brief, surreptitious glance, careful not to let Draco catch them at it. They were both beginning to rethink the wisdom of this little outing; a day in the Muggle world, introducing Draco to such Muggle pastimes as seeing a movie, visiting a video arcade, and going to the mall. It was the middle of their last week at Hogwarts- commencement would be on Saturday- and though the younger students were in the midst of exams, the seventh-years, who had completed their N.E.W.T.'s already, were free all week long, with leave to come and go from the school as they liked during the daylight hours, seeing as they were now considered fully functioning adult witches and wizards.

Harry and Hermione had hoped that over the course of this day they would encounter something- anything- that would capture Draco's interest, that would cause him to show even a hint of enthusiasm, but so far, no dice. He was so obviously miserable, though he was putting on an effort to be stoic about the whole thing.

Even his occasional queries of "what the hell is that?" were dull and listless.

Hermione ran a hand through her curls. "Draco... what time is it?" she asked. She had bought him a digital watch earlier in the day, before lunch. She'd been encouraged to see that he had at least put it on his wrist (his right wrist- being a leftie), and had fiddled with the buttons, squinting at the instructions, in an attempt to set the time- refusing, typically, to ask either Harry or herself for assistance. He had not, however, so far as she could tell, glanced at it again since.

He did now, and his brow furrowed immediately. "Eighteen-forty-two? What the fuck does THAT mean?"

Hermione took his wrist in her hand and bent over the watch. She was glad in that moment for her long, thick hair, which tumbled over her face, obscuring it from Draco's view and hiding the small, almost reluctant smile that tugged briefly at the corners of her lips. It was gone in the next instant, though, as she looked up and met his pale eyes, which bore an expression of irritated frustration that he had apparently not managed to set the watch correctly.

She did not smile often these days, and when the smiles did come, they never lasted long.

"It's perfectly correct," she informed him. "It's just that you set it to military time. It would have looked the same as 'normal' time this morning, when you set it, but after noon it's different. All it means is that its six-forty-two and we should look for a little place to have some dinner before we get back to school."

Harry glanced up and down the street they were on, his eyes finally settling on a small restaurant decorated with colorful paper lanterns strung across the door and windows. With a small, and somewhat forced, smile, he suggested, "how about sushi?"

"What the hell is that?" Draco asked tiredly.

00000

He dodged to the left, yanking the hood of Potter's cloak back up over his head as he did so, vanishing entirely from sight once again. Two jets of green light whizzed through the air where he had allowed himself to be seen a fraction of a second before- followed by two muffled thumps as a pair of bodies fell heavily to the grass, dead.

Nott and the elder Zabini; apparently in their excitement at spotting him they had forgotten his mother's No-Avada-Kedavra rule, and now he had two fewer adversaries to worry about.

He was making it a point to kill as many of his mother's followers as he could in this manner; selecting a pair who were standing fairly close to one another and then appearing directly between them, allowing them a brief, tantalizing glimpse... and then vanishing again and moving- fast- as they both unleashed spells in his direction. If he was lucky, the spells would cross and his enemies would end up doing his dirty work for him; killing each other.

This didn't work in every case, of course; plenty of them he had to kill himself. But the more of them he could trick into killing one another, the better- because that way, when the Aurors showed up to investigate- and oh, they would come; this was the largest scale bloodshed since before the fall of Voldemort- they could run tests on the victims' wands and discover that they had been turned one against another with deadly intent. The whole incident would be chalked up to infighting amongst the former Death Eaters, the Ministry would say good riddance, and that would be the end; case closed.

This was what Draco was hoping for... assuming, of course, that he made it out of here alive.

He crouched down a few feet away from the bodies and waited in silence as Blaise, who had witnessed his father's demise from a distance of several yards, approached at a run.

"DAD!" Blaise threw himself to his knees beside his fallen father, and Draco couldn't help envying him for the briefest moment- envying him that he and his father had been close enough that Blaise was grieved by his death. Draco couldn't imagine ever having been moved to make such a display for Lucius, even before the time they had been mortal enemies. There had always been a certain... coldness to the relationship, long before it had disintegrated into outright hatred.

But Draco had no time to reflect, as Blaise was on his feet again in the next instant, wand at the ready, staring around with wild eyes. "Malfoy!" He howled, breathing hard. "You fucking coward! You sorry son of a bitch! Show yourself!"

Draco straightened up as silently as he could, thinking, that's pretty fucking rich, him calling me a coward because I won't just come out in the open against fifteen-to-one odds... but the odds weren't fifteen-to-one anymore; they were down to about five-to-one now, including Blaise. The grass was littered with bodies.

Silently, stealthily, he crept around behind Zabini. When he got close enough, he reached out and hit Zabini with the flat of his hand, hard on the back of the head. As Blaise first stumbled forward, then rounded on him, snarling, Draco pushed back the hood of the invisibility cloak once more.

Here was the bastard who had delivered Hermione to his father, after all. There was no doubt in Draco's mind that Lucius must have had an inside man at Hogwarts, and Zabini had been it. Zabini had delivered Hermione up for torture... for rape... for death.

Draco was going to look him straight in the eye as he sent him to join his bloody father.

For a long moment, the two boys, former Housemates, former dorm mates, former playmates- stared at each other in silent hatred. Then, the sound of running footsteps and a shouted curse alerted Draco to the fact that someone besides Zabini had seen his head hovering there, apparently disembodied, the rest of him still concealed beneath the cloak.

He jerked his head back, and a stream of purple light (purple? What the hell does that do?) zinged past his nose. Blaise, taking advantage of his momentary distraction, unleashed a spell of his own; a jet of yellow light that Draco recognized as a knife-edge curse.

It had been aimed squarely at his chest, but his quick reflexes saved him. He threw himself to the side, and the curse managed only to open a deep, but not life-threatening, gash on his upper arm. He hit the ground, rolled as yet another curse flew over his head, and came up with his right hand pressed to this newest wound, blood seeping through his fingers- but his left hand, despite the pain high up on his arm, was steady, his wand trained unwaveringly on Blaise's heart.

His hood was still thrown back, his head still visible, and so he got his wish. He got to look Zabini right in the eye as he spoke the words of the killing curse. A flash of green light, and Blaise crumpled beside his father.

It occurred to Draco briefly, and without the burden of much emotion, that Mrs. Zabini was going to have a rough day tomorrow.

Then he was yanking his hood up and throwing himself to the ground once more, gritting his teeth against the flare of bright, hot pain in his arm, to escape the onslaught of yet more spells as the elder Crabbe and Goyle, who did everything together, much like their sons, bore down on him. Once he took care of them, there would be only two left; his mad bitch aunt... and his mother.

00000

And that was what it all came down to; Draco and his mother, facing off in a wizards' duel on the lawn of their home, which was strewn with bodies, and glass from the dozens of broken windows, out of which great billows of black smoke were now pouring. Clearly the fire which had started in Draco's private library was spreading fast.

After pulling the old tease-em-with-a-glimpse-and-disappear trick on Crabbe and Goyle, and successfully getting the two not-overly-bright wizards to off each other for him, he had taken on his Aunt Bella. He had not been looking forward to this as, ironically enough, it was the two women present- his mother and aunt- whom he feared the most; they were vicious, the both of them, and the hatred they bore him was of a more personal nature than that of the others, and burned all the brighter as a result.

Yet in the end he had triumphed over his aunt, though she had given him something to remember her by; one of her curses, a lucky guess as to his position, since he'd been invisible at the time, had picked him up and hurled him several feet through the air and into the side of the house; he'd seen stars when he'd smacked it, and as he'd fallen the four feet or so to the grass, his vision had darkened. He'd been sure that this was finally it. It would have been, too, had his legs supported him when his feed hit the ground- but as luck would have it, they had not. His legs had buckled and he had collapsed to his knees, so that her next spell had slammed into the wall above his head, showering electric blue sparks down on him. He had realized then that his hood was askew and his head partly visible; he'd thrown himself flat, pulling his hood up just in time to avoid yet another curse, then rolling over and over, several times until he was a good few feet away.

With his vision still doing alarming things, with the world feeling as though it was rocking and tilting beneath his feet, with his breath coming in short, harsh gasps- he thought he had cracked, or at least badly bruised, a rib or two when he'd hit that wall- he had managed to drag himself back to his feet and aim the killing curse at her as she raced to where she'd last seen him, on his knees in the grass, and began swearing and kicking savagely at thin air.

"Aunt Bell," he had said, his voice ragged, pushing his hood back once more.

She had whirled about, her expression shocked at finding him on his feet. He was rather shocked to find himself on his feet, actually, but he wasn't about to lose the advantage her surprise gave him. He'd acted fast. A flash of green light later, she'd been dead on the grass, that amazed expression still on her face.

00000

Draco swayed on his feet. His injuries were catching up to him. They were, by this point, really beginning to impair his reflexes; his strength, his speed, even his awareness of his surroundings; of anything outside the pain in his ribs, his arm, the numerous other cuts and bruises and gashes he'd sustained all over his body. Then there was the fact that the ground beneath his feet, like some vast, ornery animal, still seemed determined to buck him right off; it was still tilting and rocking and attempting to throw him to his knees.

It was no great surprise, therefore, that his mother managed to walk right up behind him and shove the tip of her wand hard into his back, right between the shoulder blades. The most impressive thing about this feat, really, was her ability to find just that spot, seeing as only his head was visible.

She could have killed him right then.

She could have, but she didn't.

Instead she said- nearly purred- in his ear, "turn around, Draco. Turn around and face me. I want to look into your eyes, my only son, my traitor child."

Draco obeyed silently, turning slowly to face her. She took a step back, but kept her wand trained on him. He stood there with his legs slightly splayed for balance, his right hand, by now entirely crimson with blood, once again gripping his left arm, his wand held in his left hand, but loosely, pointing down toward the ground, his teeth gritted and head bowed slightly forward, staring at her through the fringe of hair that hung forward over his brow, which was now beaded with perspiration.

"Mother," he said simply, still through clenched teeth.

Narcissa shook her head. "I would it were not so," she said. "I wish I had been barren."

Draco made no reply. Really, what did one say to that?

She regarded him a long moment more- committing him to memory, perhaps? then abruptly shook her head as if to clear it.

"I haven't seen you in over a year," she said then, almost conversationally, "and you look more like him than you ever did. Your father, whom you murdered here tonight. You wretched, ungrateful boy. How is it that you can look so fair, so like him, and yet be rotted on the inside, rotted clear through?"

Draco only glared. If his mother had been hoping to engage in some lively verbal sparring while holding him at wandpoint, then she was just going to have to be disappointed. He'd been through too much today. He didn't have it in him to stand here and trade insults with this woman. He was on the verge of collapse, and was making a conscious effort to hold all his strength, all his focus, together for one final act- the act of killing her.

But if he didn't get the opportunity soon...

It appeared to Draco that behind Narcissa a wall of darkness was gathering. Gathering and beginning advance upon him.

No. He was not going to pass out, not here, not now, not like this. If he did, he would never wake up; she would see to that. And in the near future she would discover that Hermione was not dead at the hands of her husband, that she had been rescued... and then she would see to Hermione too.

This last thought affected him far more than the reality of his own danger at the moment. The fact that if he allowed this woman to kill him and walk away she would undoubtedly go on to hunt down his beloved- that was what gave him a second wind. It could not be allowed to happen.

He blinked hard and gave his head a single, decisive shake to clear it. The darkness receded. It still hovered at the very edges of his vision, but it no longer threatened to overwhelm him- not for the moment, anyway.

Narcissa saw his eyes clear- and hers hardened.

"What do you want to do, mother?" he asked.

She answered him with a single word.

"Duel."

Immediately upon saying this, she whipped her wand sharply up and then down in a salute, then simply stood there, wand at her side, no longer pointing at him, and waited for him to follow suit.

The first thing Draco did was to push the cloak back over both shoulders, so that it hung straight down behind him and his body was entirely visible again; it was only fair, after all, that she should see him as clearly as he could see her, in a duel.

He would fight with honor, by God.

He then returned the salute, slowly, wearily, and they each turned to pace off the prescribed distance.

He had gotten nearly the full ten paces before his every instinct screamed at him to dodge. He threw himself off to the right, and that was how he came to have the deep, jagged wound in his side; had his instincts failed him, his mother's curse would have hit him squarely in the back.

The pain didn't hit him right away, which was a good thing. It was eclipsed by his outrage at her treachery. He had expected something like this from his father- but for some reason, it had never occurred to him that his mother was equally dishonorable- if not more so. Cruel, yes, he knew she was cruel, and cold, selfish and ruthless. But he had never pegged her for a cheater. The last attempt of a disillusioned little boy to think well of his own mother had been shattered.

He rolled and came back to his feet, aware only that his side was very warm, warm and wet and sticky. He shook his hair out of his eyes just in time to see his mother hurl another spell at him, and dodged it with rather more success than he had the first... as he could see this one coming.

Bitch! His mind was screaming. That- conniving- bitch!

He fired off a spell of his own, and the battle was joined.

00000

He had no way of keeping track of time during the vicious, desperate fight that followed. It could have been minutes; it could have been hours, as Malfoy Manor burned in the night and the last two Malfoys waged open war upon one another.

It was all he could do to keep up with his mother; dueling her was like fighting three merciless opponents at once. They had fought until they were both on their knees, until more of the spells they hurled at one another went astray than found their target. They had fought until Draco was clinging to consciousness by a thread, and it appeared to him that his mother was in similar condition.

He gathered all his remaining concentration for one more spell; he could feel that that was all he lad left in him- only just that much strength, and no more. This showdown with his mother was about to end, one way or another. He hurled a final spell at her without even being aware of what spell it was- it was a simple spell, that was all he knew for sure. It had to be, at this point, if he wanted it to be effective. Out of the past several spells he had sent her way, two of the more complicated ones had not even reached her; they had petered out halfway, dying in a shower of sparks, and he had never seen such a thing happen before; hadn't even been aware that it could happen- and it scared the shit out of him; something was not right.

She sent a spell at him almost simultaneously; the two jets of light seemed to collide in mid-air, and careen off of one another- or at least it appeared so to Draco, but he couldn't be sure; that wall of darkness was rushing at him again, nearly as quickly as his mother's curse. It also seemed to him that his curse continued toward her and struck her, though not full-on as he had intended, having been knocked off-course by the collision. Her spell missed him entirely, shooting off past his shoulder, and, watching her, he thought he saw her fall; fall from her knees flat onto her back. But he didn't get to see whether she stayed down, for at that moment the darkness struck him and knocked him flat.

He didn't lose consciousness- he held onto it grimly, through an act of sheer will. He found himself staring straight up at the smoky sky and repeating over and over again, like a mantra, "Hermione is alive... she needs me," until the darkness had passed.

But he wasn't able to keep track of his mother. To have done something even as simple as turning his head to the side would have threatened his tenuous grip on consciousness. It was several moments before he managed to fight off the darkness to the point where he could roll over, push himself first to his knees and then to his feet, and look, finally, over to where she'd been lying.

And he didn't see anything there.

The place where he'd been sure he had seen her collapse was empty. The grass appeared trampled, but there was no body there.

Again heeding a strong instinct- he was operating largely on instinct by now- he pulled the invisibility cloak forward over himself once more, and reached back with his uninjured arm to tug the hood up over his head, vanishing completely from view again. Then he turned his back on the place where his mother had been and began to stumble toward the gate.

He only made it halfway.

The wall of darkness slammed into him again, and this time it slammed into him from behind, just like his mother's first, dishonorable curse. He never saw it coming. It threw him forward, flat on his face, and the last thing he saw before his eyes won out over his will and dragged themselves slowly shut was the iron gate he'd been making for- the gate that marked his freedom from this cursed land he had renounced; the gate he needed to pass through to escape this killing ground that had once been his home.

It looked so far away.

And even after his eyes had closed, he didn't slip into unconsciousness immediately; no, there was a time, an indeterminate time, that he lay there on the grass, feeling it tickle his face, smelling smoke and blood- his own blood- and death, aware of the hot stickiness that was his side, and aware of something else, too- a voice, it seemed, calling him.

Was it real? It could have been nothing more than fevered imagination- he simply didn't know. But he knew he heard it, sometimes closer, sometimes further away; a familiar voice with a sweet, lilting tone that he remembered from rare- oh, so rare- occasions in his childhood.

He had learned long ago that that lilting tone was false- it boded no good for him- it only meant that she wanted to find him for some purpose of her own. Still, even now it was like a siren song, making him want to answer, and so perhaps it was a blessing that he was too weak to do so. If the voice was, in fact, real- answering would surely have sealed his fate.

"Draco!" the voice was calling; sweet, affectionate, concerned. "Draco, darling? Where are you? Mother knows you're hurt, love... show me where you are, so I can help you! Draco? Draaacooo..."

It was at this point that all consciousness fled.

00000

He awoke on the morning of graduation, in the early hours before the sky had lightened, groggy and disoriented, soaked in clammy sweat from the nightmare reliving of his one-man war. He was alone in his bed, in his Head Boy room (he had not shared Hermione's bed since they had returned from Malfoy Manor- they had not discussed it, but he knew she was not ready). He was curled in a fetal position, one arm pressed to his side, the other thrown over his head as if in an attempt to conceal or protect his face, and before he could come back to any awareness of his surroundings, a single whispered, half-choked, lost-sounding word escaped his lips;

"Mummy."