Draco sat in the Head's cabin trying to ignore the bookworm before him... but he couldn't. He was taken with an overwhelming guilt. He knew. Potter didn't know, Weasly didn't know, but he knew. He'd been there. And worst off all... he hadn't tried to fight it.
He recalled hearing her screams from down the hall... and as he looked at her... he remembered.
Flashback:
Father and the Dark Lord, the Dark Lord and Father... always inseparable, always the same. Draco could hear the whips... she cried out over and over... and they whipped harder and harder. He'd been dismissed only to attend his own daily beating. He no longer cried out, it was less fun for his father that way, but as he looked around he shuddered. It killed him to know that not an hour ago these men had been taking out their evil lust on that poor girl they called a mudblood. He glared at his father, the man he was forced to call father, and felt pure hate radiate from his eyes. To his misfortune Lucius Malfoy noticed his son's stare. He smiled and walked closer to the boy huddled in the corner.
"Something on your mind boy?" He asked his voice a slithering pit of slime and mold.
"I was just wondering, father, how you could call something so pure dirty of blood, when you yourself are more dirt than blood." Lucius reared back and hit the boy with a metal rod. Stars blasted behind Draco's eyes as the thing fell against his face and he felt the warm stream of blood flow forth.
"You've always been such a disappointment," his father said coolly.
"Why father, because I'll never be you? Because I refuse to?" His father now enraged beyond words said nothing, only continued beating him with the metal rod. And Draco... Draco just smiled. As the blackness took him he heard someone retrain his father, protesting that he couldn't kill the boy. But the last thing he heard... the last thing left was Hermione Granger... Sobbing down the hallway... and in that instant he put the last six years behind him and determined to help her... after all he had nothing to live for.
End Flashback:
He glared at her furious that saving her from a fate worse than death did not alleviate his guilt, not in the least, but then he started to notice the changes in her.
Her hair had tamed since their first few years, now a strait brown blanket that fell almost to her rear. Her clothes were as plain as ever... but now they seemed too big like she was trying to huddle in them, to hide. Her eyes though reading were tight around the corners and darted at every little noise.
It was then that he realized he hadn't saved her. She was in a living hell. He shook his head. So what if the little mudblood has some pain in her life! Everyone does, why should she be any different! His eyes widened as the word mudblood crossed his mind, he stood and walked from the cabin to find an empty one. He needed to be alone.
As he wandered the narrow hallways of the train he thought back through the years. He had changed so much. He used to live for his father's praise and, despite the daily beatings while he was home, something that resembled love... no not love... need. Lucius Malfoy needed his son. Needed an heir... Draco turned, cold with rage, and looked out into the storm that ragged over the ground so much like the storm in his own heart. What had he done for that need? What had believed, who had he hurt, all for the love of a man who could never give it? For the past six years he called Granger a Mudblood... he shivered at the thought. I'm the one who is dirty. He felt cold inside...
Night had fallen, he realized as he focused his eyes out the window. Draco Malfoy left the window with a sigh... and with it he left his calm. The train came to a stop and Draco headed back to the cabin.
As much as Draco loved the night, it was then that his haunts came to him. He had more pain in his life than simple beatings...
He had a sister.