DISCLAIMER: This is just the usual disclaimer, all of the stuff you recognize from the books belongs to J. K. Rowling and associates, while all of the new stuff belongs to me. This includes the plot, any new characters, and revision of or additions to existing names. If I have used something from a story already posted on then please notify me and I shall respond accordingly.

This is my first fic, and I realize that some parts of it will be agonizingly lame. Please leave constructive criticism and any suggestions that you may have. I will respond to flames with venom and spiteful language, so spare yourselves the trouble, and go waste your time reading something else.

Chapter 1

The summer before his seventh and final year at Hogwarts, Draconis Lucifer Malfoy, usually referred to as Draco, was about to have an unusual summer.

His father had made the mistake of beating him one too many times, and the proverbial last straw had broken the proverbial camel's back. Draco had, until recently, revered his father. Lucius Aden Malfoy was everything that Draco had ever wanted to be. But something had nagged at him during his sixth year of schooling at Hogwarts. His eyes had finally opened to the lack of difference between muggleborns and purebloods. His favorite Hogwarts professor, Severus Snape, had pleaded, actually begging Draco not to join the ranks of Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters. This desperate behavior had shocked Draco into questioning things he had always before held as absolute truths.

Draco had run away from home, away from his father, the Dark Lord, away from all he had ever known.

Which is how a bruised and bloody blonde found himself in a dark alleyway, with the rain washing away the pain and the blood. By an ironic stroke of luck, his plea for somewhere safe had him apparated right across the street from a non-descript 24-hour Muggle clinic. He managed to walk in and attract attention before he blacked out, crumpling to the floor in a steadily growing pool of blood..

'How undignified,' was his last coherent thought before he succumbed to the darkness tugging at his mind and collapsed into sweet oblivion.

When he awoke, a short and somewhat pudgy blonde nurse had been studying his face, and she started backwards when his eyes flew open.

Though he felt like lashing out with a snappy remark about her gawking at him like an animal from a zoo, all he could command his tongue to form was an indecipherable grunt. He was too tired to even sneer. The nurse, rather pretty in a plump, homely way, smiled a knowing smile and said almost mockingly, "How are you feeling, dearie?"

Now the urge to sneer was so strong his lip actually twitched.

The nurse, still uncomfortably close to his face, noticed this movement and raised a questioning eyebrow. Draco decided not to dignify this silent question with an answer.

The plump nurse pulled back and helped him sit up. Looking around, he noticed how many machines he was hooked up to. The Muggle needles he saw in his arms gave him a sudden urge to shudder and rip them out.

The nurse suddenly decided to start talking, "My name is Sherry Everett, your personal nurse for the duration of your stay."

Draco looked at her and he finally coaxed his mouth to ask the questions that had been swooping around in his head since he awoke.

"Where am I? How long have I been here? What day is it? When can I lea…"

"Well!" Ms. Everett exclaimed, "Slow down there, poppet!" Draco winced at the pet name.

She paused a moment, as though remembering the questions and the order in which they were asked, then started spewing out information.

"You are in Kadlec Hospital, 2375 West Farthing St. about ten blocks from where you," there was a brief pause in her speech, "checked in at the 24-hour clinic. You've been here for almost an entire week, and the date is July 21, 2003."

Draco looked at the plump nurse dumbly for a moment while the information soaked in.

Then, in a small, very unMalfoy-ish voice, Draco asked, "A whole week?"

"Almost a whole week, 6 and a half days, to be exact." Sherry retorted. A shadow passed over her previously merry features as she started checking over his remaining wounds. Draco surveyed the room he was in. He appeared to be in a solitary ward, his bed being the only one. The room was small, with a window covering roughly half of the wall to his right. The walls were an indefinable shade of pale green that matched that of St. Mungo's. 'A disturbing coincidence,' Draco thought detachedly. The door was made of a strange material that he dismissed as some kind of metal, and was painted white. Draco saw also that the locks were all accessible from the outside only.

It wasn't until then that Draco noticed his lack of depth perception.

"May I see a mirror Ms. Everett?"

"Just Sherry, if you please."

"Ah, Then may I see a mirror, …Ms. Sherry?"

Sherry hesitated, and then hustled out, returning a few minutes later with a mumbled, "You may not want to see this."

It was then that Draco started to worry. He usually had his wounds healed magically, leaving little traces of scars, but this time he had been treated with Muggle technology, meaning everything would stay. Permanently. He snatched the mirror as soon as it was within reach, and whipped it up to his face. When the mirror reflected his face properly, Draco almost dropped it. He stared numbly at the pale face staring back at him. His long hair was loose and framed his drained face; the vague shape of his family crest, ('Fa-Lucius' ring,' he thought, correcting himself with a sneer) marred his right cheek, but across his left eye was the most shocking discovery. A horribly thin scar snaked from about the middle of his forehead down through his left eye and down to trace his left cheekbone. His once proud silver eye was now a dull gray with a milky white iris. He suppressed a shudder and examined the rest of his injuries. He had scars all up and down his chest, his back as well, had he been able to see it. Greenish tinges that signified nearly healed bruises littered his torso. He knew what his arms and legs were like, having been able to see them during and after his beatings.

Draco suddenly felt the urge to rip something, or a certain someone, apart. Since Lucius was not within reaching distance, Draco flung the mirror with a deadly accuracy at a cute poster depicting a nurse hugging a young child. The mirror broke into millions of pieces and one piece managed to imbed itself between the child and the nurse. Sherry blanched as she watched this episode, clearly frightened. Draco turned to her; fury etched into his remaining aristocratic features, and saw the fear on her face. Her face reminded him of his mother in an odd way, though his mother had been tall, slender, and terribly aristocratic. Narcissa had died at Lucius' hands a year prior, and Draco immediately blinked away stinging tears at the memory of her piercing screams, feeling more like his wretched excuse for a father than he ever had before, and decided to apologize.

Draco smoothed his expression into a calm, collected appearance. His endless training and drilling in the ways of wizarding aristocracy were the only thing for which Draco was thankful to Lucius. Draco concentrated his thoughts into relevant and nonrelevant, discarding the nonrelevant thoughts for later brooding.

"I am sorry, Ms. Sherry," spoke a now outwardly calm Draco, "I did not mean to frighten you."

"Nonsense," said a thoroughly shaken nurse, she recovered quickly, "I will bring you lunch in two hours, if you need anything before then, press the button on the bedside table." With that, she turned around and walked towards the door. She paused at the door, and turned around before she was all the way through the door, she said steadily, "If you need anything, you can talk to me."

Draco nodded, poker-faced, at the kind offer and resisted the impulse to smile at her in gratitude. Sherry nodded back with a motherly smile and hurried off to another patient's bedside.

After Sherry had left a shock jolted his befuddled mind as he realized what he had just done. Being kind to a Muggle? What had happened to his Malfoy instincts? Draco openly shuddered at the thought of being related to that monster, the bastard that had led him to this degradation. In that moment, Draco silently vowed to do everything he could to bring down Lucius Aden Malfoy.

Now Draco resigned himself to watch the doctors and nurses and the occasional visitor flit past his window. He mused about his father, mother, money, school, and all other wholly depressing topics that he could think of. He thought about Quidditch, and wondered if he would ever play again. He thought about how he would find his godfather after he got out of this mess. Then he thought about how he was thinking too much, and in doing this Draco exhausted his tired brain and fell asleep.