Note: This chapter, and any future chapters, is subject to change.

--

I had hair in my mouth.

My stomach was hungry.

I didn't kill Dumbledore.

I was going to die

--

I woke up to insistent prodding on my left foot.

I was terrified, and for one brief moment I thought that I was going to shit my heart out. Luckily, a familiar voice saved me from further soiling my standard black school robes. It was the voice of my mother. My blood-pump remained firmly in its place, unharmed but beating quickly.

"Draco, wake up!" her voice whispered from somewhere by my legs. I wished for the life of me that when I looked around I'd find myself in my own bed, or possibly a hospital cot; Merlin knows those things feel like a slab of rock. I jerked up as fast as I could and my head bumped painfully into a solid mass.

"Fuck! Mother? Where are you?" I gasped out as I lifted one of my sore arms. Rubbing my throbbing bruise seemed to have done nothing to the ache. I carefully opened my right eye, then my left. Damn it! Definitely not the hospital.

"I'm sitting next to you—you bumped into a shelf, I think. Are you alright?" she replied. Blood was rushing to my head but I could hear her robes ruffling as she moved closer. The scent of lilac perfume was a stark contrast from the decaying smell of the room around me. Her bracelet (I had given it to her on Mother's Day when I was twelve) clinked as the chain collided with itself and I could tell that she was using her hand to try to find me in the darkness.

"Yes, I'm perfectly peachy! The day is warm and the weather is ideal for flying!" I snapped. I couldn't help it; I tend to revert to sarcasm in tense situations. On one of the days that I visited Crabbe, his mother started scolding me for exploding her authentic Van Go—

"Draco Malfoy!" she hissed, rudely interrupting my inner monologue, "Don't you dare talk to your mother like that! I carried you for nine months and this is how you act to repay me? If you think for one minute that—"

"Mum! I take it back! Jeez, I don't need a lecture while we're trapped in… where are we again?" Please don't say Voldemort's lair, please don't…

"Well, we're not in Voldemort's lair, if that's what you're thinking…" she paused. I waited for her to continue. She didn't. I could practically see her looking down at her nails. Okay, so maybe not see her with my eyes, but you know what I mean! By the way, my eyes are a nice sparkly grey color; it suits my pale complexion.

"So…" I said slowly. I felt my way with my hand until I found exactly where she sat and then I crawled over to her and she wrapped her arm around my shoulder. I was being extremely manly; comforting my mother and all. I will never admit how scared I was.

"We're actually at home," she replied curtly. What! You have got to be kidding me! I might have squeaked at this point, but I'm not sure. "Voldemort," she spat, "decided to pay me an unexpected visit. He thought it was… charming to bring me the beaten body of my only son instead of a nice arrangement of flowers." She paused again and her calm broke. Her breathing became ragged as she cried as silently as she could and I could feel the moisture seeping through her eyes when she rested her head on mine. My cranium was stinging at that point, but Mum seemed to be having issues at that moment and if I had said anything she'd probably have snapped and bitten me or something. Then I heard her mutter into my hair, "His friends have taken over the Manor, Draco." I wasn't that surprised.

Now, I have always known that Father supported the Dark Lord but I was a bit suspicious about Mum; any time He sent word to the Manor that He'd be arriving Mum would have prior appointments that she felt the need to drag me to. I endured various charity banquets and visits to her friends' estates (I secretly call Mum's friends the Glitter Gang because her best friend, Ivory Boot, always has an obnoxious amount of blue sparkles on her eyelids) ever since the summer after my fourth year of Hogwarts, and therefore I had only ever met Him twice.

The first time I saw His monstrous face I shattered a glass over my own foot. Mum had tried to drag me to an orphanage to help during the holidays of my 5th year but I used a Weasley-made sweat and puked all over my duvet. She let me stay in my room but had a house-elf keep an eye on me for reasons she did not disclose. Thinking back on it now, I wish that she had told me why; I would have gladly stayed in bed. But I, the growing boy that I was, got hungry and stunned the elf with my wand. All I wanted was a glass of milk and a plate of cookies; I got a scar from the middle of my ankle to the pad of my foot instead.

After making a complete fool of myself by loosening the grip on my milk glass, the Dark Lord laughed a chilly laugh and flicked his wand to repair the shards. He (the bastard!) actually took the plate of cookies from me and walked away. It was so undignified! I stood there in a growing puddle of my own blood with my gob hung open while he stole my food! Hell, I didn't even think a beast like that could eat food; blood maybe, but definitely not human food.

Erg, that train of thought made my stomach growl and I became aware of my dark surroundings again. My mother had stopped crying and I then realized that she had been speaking to me frantically for over a minute.

"—and I did it for your own good but now we don't have anyone that can help us. If we get out of here the wards on the house will be activated and kick them all out because there would be no Malfoy's in the house--"

"Mum!" I shouted as quietly as I could, "Slow down! We… we can find a way out of here… er… we need a plan and we need one before someone comes to murder us. Just calm down and think!" I didn't add "Because I can't think myself, I'm so frightened out of my mind."

My mother is a very sharp woman; she was a Slytherin after all, and one of the top five percent of her class way back in the ice age when she actually attended school. (I am so very glad that my mother instructed my in Occlumency; Aunt Bella couldn't teach her way out of a cauldron.)

We both stayed silent and unmoving and tried to come up with anything that might save our lives. I wasn't being much help. Along with becoming increasingly sarcastic, I am in no way a Gryffindor, so I panicked. All I could think of was Dumbledore. He was dead, dead, dead. He would never breathe again, never give another beginning of the year speech, never coddle his precious students again… I could have saved him, I could have let him go and he would have saved me too. I could have saved myself by killing him. If Potter would have killed me in the bathroom Mum wouldn't be in danger! If Severus… wait a second… SEVERUS!

"Professor Snape killed Dumbledore because of the Unbreakable Vow, didn't he Mum, didn't he." It wasn't a question, but I could feel the air shifting on my cheek as she nodded. "What else did he agree to?" I whispered. I felt a tiny flare of hope awaken.

Mum suddenly went stiff and grabbed my shoulder. Footsteps.

Someone was coming.

--