Draco had been packing for the trip home when Snape swept into the common room and ordered him to his office. Draco followed, silent and confused. Once inside his potions professor's office, Snape closed the door.

"There's something you must know," he said and passed Draco that morning's copy of The Daily Prophet, fresh off the press.

The headline of a sub-article jumped out at him.

CAUGHT Lucius Malfoy, Death Eaters Are Among Us

Draco's whole body went numb as he took in the bold, black letters and the picture of his father being arrested. He looked up at Snape.

"This is a lie," he said, but he knew it wasn't.

"It's true," Snape murmured.

Draco frowned. Snape was still talking but Draco couldn't hear a word he said. Silence roared in his ears. He couldn't breathe. He looked down at the article that outlined the battle at the Ministry for Magic in the Department of Mysteries, how Harry Potter and his friends had exposed several Death Eaters, that his father had been arrested. Snape gripped his shoulder and he looked at him again, saw his mouth moving but heard no sound. He stood there staring at him as a haze of rage rolled over him.

-o-

"Mother?" Draco called out as he walked through the front door. The house was gravely silent. "Mother!"

He hurried through the hallways toward the sitting room. She wasn't there. He checked the solarium. Not there either. He checked the library, but it was empty. He looked onto the veranda. It was clear. Next, he went upstairs to his father's study, the portrait gallery, the family room. She wasn't in any of them. Finally, he went to his parents' bedroom and found her sitting on the bed, sobbing.

"Draco," she sniffled as he pushed the door away. She wiped at her cheeks, but tears kept overflowing. "I didn't hear you come in—I—"

"Mother," he murmured, not knowing what else to say. The heartbreak in her eyes had sucked the air out of his lungs. He felt like a little boy again, watching his mother weep, powerless to stop the pain.

Her lower lip began quivering. "Oh, Draco!" she wailed.

Draco was at her side in an instant, wrapping her in his arms. She cried into his shoulder as he tried his damnedest not to let the tears burning his own eyes fall.

-o-

The summer when he turned sixteen, Draco learned that there was a difference in believing something because you had been told that it was true and feeling conviction. He had been told his whole life that Purebloods were better than half-bloods and Muggle-borns, and he had recited this rhetoric at every turn. He had been told Lord Voldemort had endeavored to correct the errors of Wizarding society before he was defeated by the infant Harry Potter. He had grown up lamenting that wizard's defeat, because that was what he had been taught.

But he realized those words and their truths had not truly been real to him. Because the moment Draco stood before the Dark Lord, he realized he had believed in him in the same way he believed in Salazar Slytherin—as nothing more than history. And after standing in front of the Dark Lord with his serpentine face and clammy skin, Draco wasn't sure what he believed anymore.

Because he didn't feel relief at the Dark Lord's return, or hope that things would change for the better, or fealty for the wizard. He didn't feel rallied to his cause. He only felt fear, raw and absolute. So, when the Dark Lord asked for his allegiance, Draco rolled up his sleeve and proffered his arm, and he took the Dark Mark wearing a mask of pride. He did it because that was the way he would continue to survive, the way his mother would continue to survive in their home now ruled by a man whose most loyal servants quivered in fear in his presence.

He would do anything to protect his family.


Author's Note: Just a quick interlude to set Draco's mindset. Honestly, I think the moment Voldemort showed up and made him take that mark, Draco was trying to force himself to be a proud participant, but I don't think he ever truly believed his own lies.