Disclaimer: "Okay, kids! What do I own?" xxaishiteru asked. "Nothing!" the children replied. One little kid added, "except for the plot."

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"No. Bloody. Way."

Hermione had just finished reading a small article in the lower right-hand corner of the Daily Prophet entitled "Death Eater's Son Kills Mother."

"What's that?" Ron asked, his mouth full of Pumpkin Pasties. They were in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express, along with Harry and Ginny. Hermione pointed to the article while passing it over to Ron and Harry, who were sitting across from her.

"It says Draco's killed his mum." Hermione watched as their eyes scanned over the article.

"Draco was under Veritaserum for the investigation…. 'The Dark Lord made me,'…under the Imperious Curse…" Harry mumbled as he skimmed through.

"…and he is going to be under the care of…ARTHUR WEASLEY!" Ron exclaimed. "Do you mean he's…Draco…our house…" Ron was obviously having trouble grasping the fact that the group's most hated enemy (with the exception of Voldemort) was going to be staying at his house after murdering his own mother!

Ron mimicked Hermione by saying, "No. Bloody. Way."

Harry's face darkened with disappointment. It seemed that his summer was doomed to be unpleasant after all, although this time, instead of the Dursleys being rotten to him, it was going to be that pompous, blonde, Slytherin. Harry groaned at having to share the same living space with that evil, snivelling…well, you get the idea.

There was one thing Harry was looking forward to this summer, and she was sitting right across from him. Her red hair glinted like copper in the sunlight streaming through the trains large windows, and her huge grin reached all the way to her eyes, which seemed to be looking at a far away scene.

Ginny Weasley was grinning madly at the thought of Draco coming to their house. Not because she enjoyed his company at all, but because she now had a new victim upon whom she could practice all the new hexes she'd learned…maybe even put into effect her most dastardly hex—polarivocce attractum. What it does, we can only wait to find out.

While Ginny had been secretly plotting and scheming, Ron had asked a very important question. "Why in the bloody hell is Malfoy staying with us? I mean, sure, there's no one to take care of him at Malfoy Manor now that his mum's dead, and his father's in Azkaban, but surely he has relatives, right?"

A cold, tired voice snapped back an answer. "Oh, right. Send me back to my Death Eater relatives so I can get 'Imperioed' and kill more people. That's absolutely brilliant, Weasel. I wonder why the Ministry didn't think of that?"

The sarcastic remark had come from Draco Malfoy, who had just stepped through the compartment door.

The four Gryffindors were almost as shocked that Draco was unaccompanied as the condition he was in. The normally impeccably dressed, well-groomed Slytherin looked untidy and dirty. His blonde hair went every which way, and his pale skin looked even paler with dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. The black Hogwarts robes he wore looked as if they had been slept in (which they had been). The only thing Malfoy seemed to have done concerning hygiene was brush his teeth.

"What happened to you?" Harry asked, staring.

Ron had not forgotten that Draco had made him look stupid yet again, so he added, "Yeah, you look like sh—"

"—like you need some rest," Hermione finished quickly. She did not want a fight on the first day of their summer vacation.

"Well, if you don't mind shoving over, Granger, I'd like to get said rest." He added in explanation, "Professor McGonagall said I had to stay in the same compartment as Weasel, over here, so I wouldn't get lost."

Of course, when McGonagall had said "get lost," she meant so Draco wouldn't purposely ditch Ron and Ginny and stay with some of his friends over the summer.

"So since I'm forced to be here, I might as well make things easier for everyone and sleep."

Draco then rudely crammed himself between Hermione and the wall after he had put his things in the overhead compartment. H couldn't sleep right away considering he could feel everyone staring at him. But soon the awkward silence that had followed his abrupt entrance gave way to light conversation, the soft voices lulling him to sleep.

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"Oh, children! How wonderful to see you all again. Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Harry." She exclaimed each one's name as she drew the child into a motherly hug.

"Welcome, Mr. Malfoy," Mrs Weasley said hesitantly, not knowiung how he would react.

She extended her hand as a warm gesture, but Draco ignored it and replied coldly, "Thank you, Mrs Weasley. Please show me to my room; I'd like to be alone at the moment." The truth was, he resented the four Gryffindors for having such a motherly figure in their lives when he had killed his mother, his only source of true kindness. He couldn't bear to touch a mother's hand just yet.

Mrs Weasley frowned and said, "Right this way, Mr. Malfoy," leading him down a very crooked hallway to a small room. "You can stay here, and the bathroom is right next door. I'll call you when dinner is ready, although if you smell it, you should probably just come right into the kitchen."

Draco walked into the smallest room he had ever seen in his life, aside from some doll houses that had belonged to his younger cousins. Even the closets at Malfoy Manor weren't that small.

"Wingardium Leviosa," Draco muttered, sending his trunk floating over to the bed. He magically started to unpack all of his things, which only barely fit into the drawers and shelves in the room. Draco moved his trunk from the bed to the floor at the foot of the bed.

He fell upon the now vacant bed and sighed. The Dark Lord would be furious with him for getting caught, and almost landing in Azkaban.

'At least I was able to hold back under the veritaserum and only tell half-truths. It's a good thing the Dark Lord has been building up our resistance to the truth serum.' Draco thought. Resisting the truth serum had been surprisingly easy this time…but he had to arrange a meeting with the Dark Lord soon to explain things and ask for forgiveness. But what was there to explain? He had followed orders, but he had managed to botch up all he had going for him to get on Voldemort's good side.

He was always messing things up. His father had constantly reminded him of that anytime he had done anything marginally wrong. He didn't seem to be exceptionally good at anything either. He wasn't as good as Harry in Quidditch, he wasn't as good as Hermione with spells. Well, he was better at Defense Against the Dark Arts, but only because he knew many of the dark spells they were supposed to be fighting against.

And was being good at the Dark Arts a good thing? After all, he had killed his own mother. If that wasn't bad enough, she was a pureblood. What was Voldemort going at anyway?

'It's not like it matters though,' thought Draco. 'I'm already in this for the long haul. I can't kill my mother and start to regret it.'

After this thought had passed, The wonderful smell of soup wafted into his room. He suddenly realized how hungry he was after not eating or sleeping for days.

He got up to follow the smell to its source, but caught himself in the mirror hanging on the back of the door. His expression turned to one of horror. He looked…ugly.

He quickly changed into cleaner robes and ran to the bathroom to was his face and brush his hair.

"There," he said, looking considerably improved in appearance. There was the Draco every one had come to know and love (er, hate). This one act had managed to return him to his normal self, with only tiny pangs of sorrow for his mother. (Why had he been so upset in the first place? Voldemort had a plan, didn't he?) Dracowas back to being an all-star prat. Of course, dying of starvation and running on no sleep didn't help his mood either.

Back on his quest to follow the smell, Draco found himself in the cramped kitchen. The smell of thick, creamy mushroom soup invaded Draco's senses. It was so wonderfully overpowering that he had to slump into an empty wooden chair by the table from the hunger pains he was feeling.

Fortunately, everyone was present at the table, since they had also smelled the food, and Mrs. Weasley had just finished cooking. That meant dinner was served very quickly. As soon as Mrs. Weasley had given the order to tuck in, Malfoy had practically pounced on his meal. He ate ravenously, struggling to at least give the impression of good manners.

Thankfully, the dinner was so good, the silence around the table was attributed to the amazing cooking, as opposed to the stranger eating alongside Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys.

When the cauldron of soup had been thoroughly emptied, Ron asked permission for the four friends to go to Diagon Alley to get some butterbeers and dessert. Molly agreed, but insisted they take Draco, "If it's all right with him."

Draco could have kissed Molly for that suggestion. 'This is the perfect time for me to sneak off to see the Dark Lord.

"I'd love to go. Let me just go get my, er, wallet." He ran down the hall to his room to get his invisibility cloak and a few galleons. Before he left his room, he strained as hard as he could to mentally reach Voldemort. He projected an image of a dirty-looking pub with the urgent message, "NOW."

'I hope he got the message,' Draco thought as he met up with the four of them by the fireplace. Each one went through one at a time via the Floo network. Each had shouted, "Diagon Alley!" before they went in, but as Draco approached the green flames, he said, "Knockturn Alley."

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Up next: Voldemort's punishment for Draco, and the Muggle carnival.

AN: Thanks to Lady Elenwen, my only reviewer. I'm doing this for me, not necessarily for the reviews, but I'd like to know if I'm doing a good job, so hit that button and write stuff!