"Would it kill you to at least act pleasant during these things?" Pansy said as she took her shoes off at the end of the bed.

Draco lay on top of the sheets, still wearing his suit from the night's celebrations. "They're not my thing," he shrugged, staring at the ceiling.

Pansy sat beside him and he felt his muscles go taught. "Celebrating our one year anniversary isn't 'your thing'?" She asked, sounding like a sarcastic, petulant child. "You were the one who invited everyone, and then you left me to do all the talking!" She got up from the bed as Draco heard her unzip her dress; he continued to stare unblinkingly at the ceiling. His wife was right though: he had let his mother invite all the people he couldn't stand, in an attempt to avoid spending time alone with her on their anniversary.

"Draco – I have to ask – you do want to be married to me, right?" Pansy asked, now standing in an unflattering, frilled, navy nightdress. Draco peered over at her and cocked an eyebrow at his pouting wife.

"Don't ask stupid questions, Pansy," he sighed, hoisting himself up to unbutton his own shirt. "If I didn't want to marry you then why would I have asked you?" He offered plainly, chucking his shirt on a nearby chair.

"Something I ask myself every day," Pansy muttered as she guided a brush aggressively through her hair. "You're lucky I haven't had an affair – one year and you've barely even touched me."

"Have one - be my guest," Draco replied flippantly, though a pang of guilt momentarily knotted his stomach. "I'm going to get some air."

Draco stood abruptly, grabbing a sweater from the end of the bed and making his way towards the door without a backwards glance. He heard Pansy call out disapprovingly, "It's past midnight," as he pulled the door closed.

He walked briskly towards the end of the corridor and down a set of carpeted stairs, taking two at a time in his bottled frustration. As soon as he hit the crisp outdoor air he felt his chest relax slightly and reached for a small tin in his back pocket, opening it and rolling a cigarette. It was a habit he'd picked up not long after marrying Pansy – something he did not deny held no coincidence. Smoking had become a way to exit situations with a valid excuse, a way of having his own space in a world where everything was decided and monitored and scrutinised.

He sat on a bench looking out onto the magnificent gardens of the Malfoy Manor. Immense hedges lined the perimeters, meticulously uniform and squared. A grand, dark stone water fountain stood in the centre of the garden, surrounded by a neat pool of smooth, grey paving. The garden itself had rose bushes: blood red and snow white, evenly spaced along the perimeter. There was no room for error in the gardens of Malfoy Manor – or in anything to do with the Malfoy's for that matter.

The cool night breeze washed over Draco's face as he sat on the bench smoking, and he allowed his eyes to flutter shut as once again a thousand images from years ago flooded his mind.

1st September, 1997

Draco stood on platform 9 ¾ for perhaps the last time, watching the other students pile onto the train. He had just endured the worst summer of his life after failing to kill Albus Dumbledore. But he had been spared. The Dark Lord had not killed him.
He had mechanically fixed his face into an arrogant smirk, hoping that he was successfully hiding the bubbling fear in the pit of his stomach. If it had not been for Professor Snape teaching him Occlumency during the last few months of his sixth year he was sure that the Dark Lord would've seen his doubts and fears, and killed him on the spot. But he was here. He felt like a complete fraud, stripped of any true identity, but as his mother had constantly reminded him in the last few days: everything was about survival now.

As the train whistle sounded Draco turned to his mother. Her hair was swept back into a neat bun at the nape of her neck, and she wore magnificent midnight blue robes, but her eyes were tired and her features framed by thin lines.

She pulled Draco into a tight hug. "Be careful," she said in a quietly desperate voice. "Do what is necessary."
As he pulled away, he nodded, his jaw set. "You too, mother," he mumbled, as she kissed his cheek and blinked away the beginnings of tears.

On the train Draco sat in a carriage with the other Slytherins as they excitedly discussed the recent events in the Wizarding World. Draco stared absently out of the window, not paying any particular attention to his peers.

"I half expected him to show up today," Draco heard Theodore Nott say.

"You mean Potter? He's Undesirable Number One, the whole Wizarding world is looking for him. As if he would show his face around here," Blaise reasoned.

Theodore shrugged. "Good point. Wonder where he is…"
"Ugh, who cares," chimed Pansy, whose head rested annoyingly on Draco's leg. "Oh look, it's Ravenclaw's finest," she said with a small cackle, pointing to the windows of the carriage. Draco looked around and saw Luna Lovegood and Amelia Collins. He frowned slightly as he watched them – Amelia Collins' dark eyes swept around, momentarily locking with Draco's. He watched with a small smirk as she rolled her eyes and pulled Luna by the sleeve, tugging her further along the corridor.

"Some of Potter's gang – they better watch themselves this year," Theodore said, also watching the two Ravenclaws as they moved down the corridor of the train.

Draco muttered a half-hearted agreement, his mind fixated on less trivial subjects.


Draco opened his eyes; he was alone in the gardens of Malfoy Manor. His cigarette had long since burned out, creating a long tail of ash. He flicked it to the ground before tossing the butt down with it. He thought back to that first day of his seventh year, feeling strange to look at the memory retrospectively, aware of its significance, but without a way to go back and make use of this knowledge. His life felt categorised by before and after, with September 1st of that year serving as the divider.

He leant back on the bench, resting his head against the large stone monument standing behind it and squeezed his eyes closed. It felt masochistic, to relive the past like this, to pinpoint possible opportunities where perhaps things could've worked out differently as he reflected how blissfully unaware he was of the horrible fate him and Amelia had in store. But it was all he had left. The only part of himself that they couldn't take away from him, try though they might.


September 1st, 1997

The Great Hall looked as it always had: four long tables, House banners hung proudly from the walls, the enchanted ceilings blanketed with a glittering of stars and wispy clouds. The only difference, it seemed, was that Severus Snape stood where Albus Dumbledore usually did. It was not only Draco noticing this change; there was a hive of whispering students as they filed into the Great Hall. As Draco took a seat in between Crabbe and Goyle a dark cloud hung over the entire Great Hall, despite the clear sky depicted above them. As some eyes turned to Draco, reproaching looks and vicious whispers directed his way, his stomach flipped with an odd sense of discomfort. Guilt?

"Thank you…" A delicate, low voice sounded from the front of the Great Hall, and hundreds of voices fell instantly silent. Snape stood tall at the podium, surveying the sea of robed students before him. His eyes lingered momentarily on Draco, who felt his eyebrow twitch under the older Death Eater's gaze.

"Welcome back students and staff, to another year of schooling at Hogwarts," Snape started, with considerably less warmth than his predecessor. "It is with great pride that I accept the position of Headmaster of Hogwarts as we enter a new era in the wizarding world; an era where the true wizard may stand proud amongst his fellow men; an era where the wizarding world will finally honour those who are truly worthy to be here."

Draco swallowed hard as he listened to Snape's words – words he'd grown up hearing from his parents, sentiments he thought he agreed with… before he had been confronted with the task of killing Dumbledore. He glanced around the room and saw that the other three House tables were all hiding looks of fear and anguish.

"… privileged to have both Amycus and Alecto Carrow on our staff, as our new Dark Arts and Muggle Studies teachers, respectively…" Snape was saying. Draco looked up to the head table where the staff sat and saw the Carrow twins – two of the vilest Death Eaters Draco had come across over the last couple of years. While both podgy and bloated in appearance, this did not make them any less venomous.

Like everything that evening, the welcoming banquet looked no different to previous years, save for the resounding chinks of cutlery around the hall as students ate in almost complete silence. Only select pupils at the Slytherin table were relishing all the changes to Hogwarts, with their occasional performative laughter piercing the atmosphere. Draco managed to eat his meal without interruption, his curtains of hanging blonde hair sufficiently hiding him from those surrounding.

As Head Boy it was Draco's duty to see that all students were escorted safely back to their Houses by their Prefects, and it was the highlight of Draco's return to Hogwarts as he policed the Gryffindor Prefects Dean Thomas, Parvati Patil and Ginny Weasley as they silently scolded him.

As Draco lay atop his four-poster bed in the Slytherin boys dormitory his thoughts turned back to the feast that night. It was his seventh time attending the welcoming banquet, and yet it had felt as morbid as a funeral. Although Potter and his two mismatched sidekicks were a notable absence – which Draco knew would be the case as they were all listed as Undesirables – it was the absence of the Headmaster which had shaken Draco. All summer he had dealt with horrible nightmares in which either a half-decomposed Dumbledore would slowly approach Draco in a dimly lit corridor, or he was forced to relive the night of his Headmaster's death upon the Astronomy Tower. Up until that night he had felt so certain about his future as a Death Eater. He hadn't thought past the task; all he could see was succeeding in it and winning the approval of the Dark Lord. He hadn't even realised how terrified he was of it all until he stood with his wand to Dumbledore. After he had failed in his task Voldemort himself had ridiculed him, in front of a table of Death Eaters. He had told Draco that he owed his life, as he was to be spared this time, but he would have to take another's life in place of Draco's. Draco was speechless as his old Muggle Studies professor, Charity Burbage, had been brought out to the table and violently killed by Voldemort's snake, Nagini. His mother had clasped his hand under the table, her nails digging into his skin so deeply that he had marks for days. He remembered having to sit for the remainder of the meeting with Voldemort, biting down on his tongue to stop himself from screaming out. He remembered racing to his bathroom to be sick immediately following Voldemort's departure that day, and then sitting slumped on the floor staring at the tiled wall until the next morning. Her death haunted him as well – these two ghosts followed him everywhere that he went. He would awaken in a pool of sweat and tears most nights, and often stayed up as late as possible, fighting off exhaustion, just to avoid his nightmares.

Draco sat up in bed, staring up at the ceiling, his eyes stinging from tiredness. What would the others think if he were to wake up screaming? Or utter something in his sleep? His vital stoic façade would be shattered…