A/N: Olympic Bobsledding is very distracting. I just thought you might want to know. So is ice-skating. (This all tells you how long it's been since I began this chapter) And commercials. And homework. And sleep (it calls to me…). But what's really distracting is that I must go practice piano right now, so this is being put on hold. Not that it will change anything for you people, because…yah…

I finally revived on the cold ground where I had fallen. I sat up and looked around. Nothing there. The winds had started up again and were beginning to tear at my clothes. They were more violent than before. I staggered to my feet and tried to shield my eyes from the onslaught as I peered into the abyss of darkness that consumed me.

No light. Where did it go?

I tried to move in what I thought to be the direction of the light, but soon found the oppressive winds were blowing so hard that I was slipping and sliding backwards. It was impossible. I tried another direction – same thing.

After a moment, I lost all sense of direction and sat down to rest. It was exhausting, struggling against the wind fighting me at every turn. So I lay down and tried to pretend I was somewhere else – not alone in the dark, surrounded by nothing but a pitch black emptiness and frantic, angry torrents of wind.

I awoke to the sound of water running. Someone was using the lavatory. In the middle of the night.

How considerate of him. What, he couldn't have held it until morning?

An unreasonable request, I knew.

I sat up and realized I was sweating, but was freezing at the same time. Quite a gross feeling, really. I squinted, attempting to make out my surroundings through the dim, pre-dawn light. It looked like it was Blaise in the lavatory – his bed was empty.

I lay down again and rolled onto my side, burrowing deep under my covers to collect as much warmth as possible. The noise of Blaise opening the door and returning to his bed barely registered as I slipped into the bliss of sleep.

I went to breakfast with Crabbe and Goyle. Normal. That was normal. That was comfortable. But my stomach felt decidedly squashed and tight, so I couldn't eat. I sat there, staring at my food.

I considered returning to bed, but then decided on the infirmary instead and excused myself from the table. I felt very peculiar, and it made me nervous.

I passed no less than three groups of girls, including one from Beauxbatons, spouting stories of what their gowns were to look like and how romantic the evening of The Ball would be. My stomach took the opportunity to flip over and complain loudly.

After what seemed an eternity, I reached the door to Madame Pompfrey's office. Knocking lightly, I was surprised when she walked up behind me.

"Can I help you, Mr. Malfoy?" she asked, eyebrows raised.

"I hope so, Madame Pompfrey," I said, in my most polite of tones.

"Well, what seems to be the trouble, then?"

"My stomach. It…it feels…odd." I felt the complete idiot. I couldn't even describe my own symptoms. At least, not in a dignified manner.

I was comically reminded of when I was a child and my mother came in one day to find me still in bed. She asked me what was wrong and I told her something was eating my insides. She gave a small laugh and stroked my face for a while until I fell asleep. Later she returned with some tonic that tasted like frogs and ink.

It felt like something was eating my stomach there in the infirmirary, too, but in a different way. However, that is not how you describe a stomachache to the school nurse. One is supposed to be slightly more eloquent than that by one's fourth year as a student at Hogwarts.

"Well let's see if we can find out why," she said in her high, condescending voice. I felt like I was being babied, and the thought didn't aid my overall wellbeing.

She went and got a clipboard from her office and had me sit on the edge of one of the beds in the wing.

"Have you eaten anything…funny?" she asked.

Really, if I had, don't you think I would have told you right away!

"No."

"Eaten too much, maybe?" The next obvious question.

"No." How stupid does she think I am? I would know if that was the trouble.

"Any other symptoms? Anything out of the ordinary?"

I thought back over the events of the past few days. Definitely out of the ordinary, but surely they had nothing to do with my health. Except…

"I've been experiencing a fever over the past two or three days. It seems to come and go."

"Hmm," was the only response to this new information. "And you have no history of this sort of…feeling?"

"No." Come on, lady. This is ridiculous.

"Well hang on, then." She pulled out her wand and aimed it at my torso. "Quaero aegrotatio!"

A strange tingling sensation filled the pit of my stomach and spread through my insides, hovering for a moment. But when it dissipated, the odd, tight feeling returned.

"Well?" I asked, hopeful of an easy solution.

"Well…" She frowned and looked at her clipboard. What she expected to find there, I hadn't a clue.

I waited, trying to be patient.

"Nothing is actually wrong with you, as far as I can tell. Are you sure there really is something the matter?" She looked up with obvious doubt in her eyes.

"I suppose it's nothing, then," I replied stiffly.

What does she mean nothing's wrong?

I stood and left immediately, trying to salvage my dignity. I could imagine what she was thinking – Malfoy, one of those students who wastes my time by pretending to be ill. Or worse, she could think me a hypochondriac.

Once I was around the corner, I stopped and leaned heavily against the solid stone wall. I could feel the rough texture through my robes. Reassuring steadiness. The castle walls were immovable and permanent. They, at least, were unalterable - constant. No lies or deceit to be found there. Nothing confusing about them.

I stood there for who-knows-how-long. When I finally got up, I went outside to take another walk. Traveling across the familiar white expanse, I again came to the edge of the forest.

What would happen if I went in? Would anyone mourn for me if I never came back?

My mother. The typical over-bearing, over-protecting mother. She would mourn my passing, grieving herself ill. Would my father? Probably. To the same extent as my mother? Unlikely.

My mother was the one always at home when I was young. She was the one who fed me, dressed me, cared for me when I was ill. She was the one who taught me to fly a broomstick. I had forgotten.

My father had often been off on business. He worked hard for us, always trying to give us a better life. Rich silks for my mother, expensive toys for me. He bought me the best broomstick after he found out I could ride. I was so happy.

That was the day he started to teach me things.

He said I was becoming "his little man" and that there were some principles I had to know to be a Malfoy. He sat me down and told me about the creatures known as Mudbloods and how they were to be detested. They were disgusting, inhuman abominations of wizardkind. I had at first expected some hideous beast with glistening fangs and slime oozing out of its skin, sharp claws and a poisonous, forked tongue.

So dreadful were the stories he told me of them and those who cared for them, I had nightmares.

Then he told me about Muggles, the lower-race, parents of the Mudbloods. Stupid creatures without any magic. I laughed at that one. No magic? Surely that was not possible. But he told me of how they blundered along, stripping the earth of resources, choking out the magical way of life in some areas. They were a waste of oxygen, a pestilence.

They were to be exterminated.

I asked why the wizards didn't just kill them all and get it over with then. He said there were some wizards who pitied the Muggles and wanted to protect them and their Mudblood children. He said that we had to be patient and wait for our Lord to return and lead us on the Great Crusade against the non-magic folk, to cleanse the world of their putrescence.

Then he taught me who our Lord was. Lord Voldemort, the Great One, Tamer of death, Powerful Controller of the weak-minded. He was to be feared, respected, and obeyed. I asked where he was, if he was our Lord, for I had never seen him. Father said he was away, but that he would be back. Someday he would return, and I had to be ready to follow him without question when he did.

I blindly took everything my father taught me as the absolute truth. No questions, nothing. Wondering if our Lord would come to visit us soon, I sometimes watched him sitting in his high-backed chair by the fire.

It wasn't until I was ten that I noticed how taut my mother's face became whenever my father spoke to me of Voldemort and of becoming a Death Eater. Her white knuckles betrayed the strain on her heart and mind. She was afraid for me, though she had often been involved in Death Eater activities in the past.

One day, when my father was away on a business trip, she took me up to the tower over the west wing of our manor and sat me on her lap, facing out the window, looking over the grounds. Her eyes looked tired, as she sat and stroked the top of my head, resting her chin on my shoulder.

She told me of when she met Father. He was young, handsome, and ambitious, eager for power. He swept her away with his gallantry, and she loved him. Really, she didn't have much control over whom she would marry, but she fell in love with him anyway. She was lucky.

When he first encountered Voldemort, he was faced with a choice: death or eternal servitude. His choice was obvious, what with a wife and a baby on the way.

He came home the day after with a hollow look in his eyes, claiming he was a dead man. He had been scared out of his wits. I didn't believe her – father, frightened? Preposterous. Impossible. Anyway, he started unlocking more of the darker secrets in the manor, using them to serve Voldemort's purposes. In the beginning, he was in constant fear, hoping only to be allowed to live in peace with his family.

But soon he became accustomed to the terrors of the Death Eaters, the horrors of the Dark Lord. He started to enjoy his work, the thrill of danger. He became ambitious again and vied for the favor of Voldemort. This was shortly after I was born, she said. When the Dark Lord found out about me, he came to our house. He questioned my father and mother of their loyalty. They, of course, answered that they would ever be true to Him. The right answer.

And that is how I came to be promised to the Dark Lord. I wasn't even four months old, and they had already sold my life away.

My father thought it was magnificent. His son would follow in his footsteps. I was excited too, as I wanted to be everything my father was. But my mother fretted.

She told all this to me as we sat in the tower, watching a soft rain falling on the green field of the manor grounds. And that is why she frowned when my father spoke of the Death Eaters to me.

But instead of instilling caution in me, her speech only furthered my desire to be like my father. To me, he was a hero, serving the greatest wizard to ever walk the earth. It made sense to align ourselves with the winning side, didn't it? For the Dark Lord would surely triumph over the Mudbloods and Muggles that infested our world.

Loyalty – a small price to pay. It still was. I still waited for the day the Dark Lord would come back and my father would say that I was old enough – waited for the day I could become a Death Eater. I thought over it again as I stared into the darkness of the Forbidden Forest.

It seemed so far away, a distant future.

It was then that I realized I didn't yearn for it the way I had when I was young, anymore. It just seemed like the inevitable future. Something that would happen eventually. Because eventually the Dark Lord would come back. It wasn't something to be worried over, as my mother thought – it was simply the direction my life was going.

I was a Malfoy. I had the family name to uphold. And it wasn't as if I had much choice anyway. I was already promised to the Dark Lord.

I did worry about my mother, though. It was hard enough on her to have a husband in the Death Eaters, always in danger of being caught by the ministry. If the Dark Lord ever did come back, I'd be enlisted, and then she'd be left with only the house elves to keep her spirits up during our absences. She was a tough woman, but she worried too much.

She feared for us mainly because her sister, Bellatrix, had already been sent to Azkaban for participating as a Death Eater. I wondered if my aunt was even alive. Mother must've asked herself that every night my father was out on "business." Was he still alive? Would he come back safely? Or would she be greeted at the door by the ministry, coming to take her and her new baby away?

Really, though, after Voldemort's downfall, she had less cause to worry. My father could talk his way out of anything, and if he couldn't, he could buy his way out. The Malfoy fortune came in handy that way.

When my father died, I would own the manor, the fortune, and the family name. I had to learn to live up to all three. I also had to marry a worthy wife to continue on said family manor, fortune, and name. She, of course, was pre-selected from among the true pureblood families. However, this meant that I had to marry my younger second cousin once-removed.

She was six years younger than me – an eternity at the age of fourteen. She was a spoiled and simpering child who only irritated me. I didn't even tolerate her presence, as the one time we had a play-date, I used a charm to tie her hair in knots until she cried, and then I punched her in the nose.

I remembered the event with much disgust as I continued to stare into the depths of the trees. I was eventually broken out of my musings by the crunch of someone passing by in the snow.

I turned, half-expecting it to be Granger, unsure of what I'd do if it were.

It wasn't.

The Ravenclaw boy gave me a startled glance and hurried on by. Probably thought I was mad, standing, staring into the trees, then turning sharply to glare at him.

When it registered that it wasn't Granger, relief flooded through me. Well, sort of. Actually, not at all. It should have, shouldn't it? But instead, a sick feeling settled in my already peculiar-acting stomach. It made me want to kick something.

Disturbed by the odd sensation taking hold of me, I shuffled back through the snow to the castle, barely pausing to stomp the snow off of my boots and robes.

I was in a foul mood.

I quickly located Crabbe and Goyle, sitting in the common room, stuffing their faces with Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and daring each other to eat one that looked a rather frightening shade of greenish-brown. I collapsed into an armchair and they grunted a welcome.

They put down the sweets and sat there, looking at me.

Waiting? For what?

I realized that they were waiting for me to tell them what to do. I had never considered what they did when they were by themselves. I finally discovered the truth – all they did was eat. Really, that was it.

I decided that if the Dark Lord never came back, they could go into the candy business, since they knew so much about it. Really, they were intelligent in that respect. They loved to eat and had learned as much as humanly possible about sweets.

I didn't have the energy to give them any orders that night, so I just leaned into the comfort of the chair and closed my eyes. I could imagine their confused faces as they considered what their choices were. After a few moments, I heard a hesitant crinkle of a wrapper, followed by an attempt to muffle said wrapper, which only succeeded in causing a louder ruckus than necessary.

I opened my eyes and they looked fearful of retribution for the disturbance of my peace. I picked up a chocolate frog box and began to open it. They glanced at each other, hopeful. After examining the card – and finding it worthless – I bit into the frog.

Delicious, as always.

Once we were past the awkward pause, they slowly began to eat again. After a few more minutes, they resumed their discussion of the different chocolates and candies. I realized I had missed lunch in addition to breakfast, and was very hungry. My stomach was starting to relax, now that I was back in a familiar setting, among familiar people, distracted. I knew Crabbe and Goyle. I knew how they worked, how they thought, how they acted.

Totally predictable and safe.

They were arguing over what flavor the greenish-brown bean was. Crabbe claimed it was rotten cabbage, but Goyle insisted it was too dark to be, adding that he was sure it was pond scum. Both were afraid to attempt a taste.

I listened in amusement for a while. They finally decided to try to cut it in half and each try a piece, but once the cutting was accomplished – no simple task – they argued over which had the larger piece.

Finally, I just grabbed both pieces from their hands and popped them in my mouth.

What am I doing? Why did I just put that thing into my mouth?

To my great relief, it tasted of neither rotten cabbage nor pond scum. It did, however, taste vaguely of rather dirty grass. As I choked it down and revealed my findings, we all had a good laugh. It felt good, being among friends again. I now remembered why I liked them so much.

After three pumpkin pasties, a licorice wand, half a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and a couple of candies called Chocolate Sparklers that fizz up in water, turning it into a chocolate drink, my stomach was satisfied. We went to dinner anyway.

I decided a small helping of meat, cheese, and bread would help counteract all of the pounds of sugar I had ingested over the previous two hours.

The roast beef was savory.

I purposely sat with my back to the other tables, facing only the other side of the Slytherin table and the wall. I had hoped, in this way, to avoid any contact with Granger, but I was not so lucky.

Halfway through the meal, the peas on my plate began to arrange themselves and spell out words. It startled me, but I quickly recovered and tried to stab as many as possible. It didn't work. They still managed to form the words Are you okay? And practice tonigh. I had managed to skewer enough by the last word to keep it from fully making the last t.

I pretended that I hadn't noticed my vegetables trying to send me messages. Thankfully, neither Crabbe nor Goyle registered the fact that I was suddenly very ravenous for peas, shoving forkfuls into my mouth all at once. I hurried them along through the rest of the meal, fearing that my meat might begin to tap-dance on my plate along with my fork and knife. I encouraged Crabbe and Goyle to take the rest of their food with them to the common room.

They followed orders, of course.

We set off for the common room – I in the hopes of avoiding eye contact with any Gryffindor. We marched quickly down the corridors, reaching the Slytherin chambers in a few minutes. As my companions continued to eat, I thought about working on the homework assigned over the holiday.

Decided against it.

We sat there, genially talking over whatever came to mind - generally food. I voiced my earlier conclusion that they should enter the food industry, and they gave me an odd look. It was like they had never even considered it.

That disconcerted me, so I went to bed. I lay, warm under the covers, thinking about it. Of course they didn't expect to be anything other than Death Eaters. They knew they were promised to the Dark Lord as well. They knew they would be His servants when He came back, and they were fine with that.

Was I?

A/N: So…not much to say. I suddenly was bitten by a cow of a plot bunny for another fic, but I shall continue to write on this one as well. Madame Pompfrey's spell is Latin. Current music: Switchfoot, Nothing is Sound.