Chapter 2 - Daily Reminders

Draco Malfoy was numb to misery. He had left misery behind the day he had taken the Mark of the Dark Lord on his arm. He had left sadness behind too, the first day that became one of many in which his father displeased the Dark Lord in some way and thus solicited punishment for his entire family. And lastly, he had left behind horror, that night in the astronomy tower as he watched his godfather murder Albus Dumbledore right before his very eyes.

Since then, Draco had been mostly just numb.

In Hogwarts, that was the best way to be nowadays. It was either that or bloodthirsty, as the Carrow Twins and most of their Slytherin followers seemed to be. Not everyone in Slytherin House was as contented with the new system as they appeared to be, but all of them were automatically marked as the Dark Lord's chosen followers, so they had little choice but to pretend to share in the half-blood and mudblood tortures.

The latter were all but eradicated from education at Hogwarts now, either facing daily torment or ridicule at the hands of their fellow students and even some teachers. The Dark Lord allowed half-bloods to be moderately tolerated, but only as one would tolerate house elves to do their dirty work for them—a necessary buffer to remind purebloods that they were all the more superior in all forms of witchcraft and wizardry. Soon, no doubt tactics would change and the end-goal of an all-pureblood student body at Hogwarts would be achieved, just as Salazar Slytherin had always wanted.

Draco was surprised how sick the thought of it made him.

He was neither deaf nor blind to what was going on around him; on the contrary, he had seen too much. And despite having been raised to truly believe in the superiority of purebloods, he couldn't stomach what his fellow Death Eaters were doing to the wizarding world around him.

In the past and in the most desperate of times, he might have sought solice from his godfather, Severus Snape, if not from his mother, but recently the new Headmaster had all but ignored him in the past few weeks since term started. But even if he'd made time for the young Malfoy, Draco doubted that he would have confided in him as he had in the past. After seeing Severus outright murder the most powerful wizard in the world, Draco wasn't sure that anything was beyond him if it was to please the Dark Lord.

And snitching on Draco's new doubts and repulses would definitely earn him some graces. Not that Severus had ever ratted him out in the past before, not even when he knew how badly Draco was failing at what was his task after all in killing Dumbledore, but nowadays no one was who they seemed and everyone's loyalties were conflicted.

Now, what Draco wanted more than anything was...what? To run away? Impossible, even if he didn't have the Mark as a reminder to him of his past, of who he now was. The Dark Lord had both his parents under his tight control, his father especially, and was now even planning to take over Malfoy Manor as his new headquarters. If not even Draco's home was safe anymore, then was there anywhere left for him?

Don't be ridiculous, you're not even in danger, he reminded himself, as he made his way back to the Slytherin common-room after a particularly boring lesson with Professor Binns, who, takeover or no takeover, never missed a single lesson and didn't seem to be affected at all.

It's dad that the Dark Lord is displeased with, not you. He knows you as the one who disarmed Dumbledore and let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, the one who helped to kill him. If nothing else, he's relaxed measures lately and is treating dad's mistakes in the past as his own. And you're not your dad, Draco. You're not.

If only he could believe that. To all his fellow Slytherins, he had become a leader and idol of sorts, something he would have reveled in years past, but which now gave him headaches and made him want to get away more than ever. After all, they were all praising him for having helped to kill someone, their beloved headmaster whom they had mourned mere months ago! Some of them were lying out of fear that he'd report them or something, but there were others who truly admired him and only wished that they could rise up to "his level", whatever that was.

But that was hogwash; he had no level, and if they ever mentioned him in future history books at all, it'd be as a footnote at best. He didn't directly kill Dumbledore—that was a fact he clung to desperately. He had merely disarmed the man, and, looking back, Dumbledore hadn't exactly put up any kind of a fight. He had simply let himself be disarmed, spoken to Draco as casually as if they were having tea.

And I watched him die.

Once in his room, which he thankfully had to himself at the moment, Draco uncovered his Mark and stared at it, hating how it was imprinted into his skin, something that would never come off even if the Dark Lord was no more. It was a part of who he was now, even if he'd had no choice in the matter...

Hearing Crabbe and Goyle coming up the stairs, Draco quickly covered the mark and assumed a calm and disinterested outward appearance. Much like in his sixth year, when he was tormented with guilt and wracked with nightmares at the task he had to perform, he had to hide all of it even from those who should be his closest friends.

Friends. Don't kid yourself, you fool. The only one who's ever had any real friends is Potter...

"If he wasn't already dead, I'd hex the old geezer," Crabbe laughed. "I can't believe that after seven years there's still history to teach us!"

"Yeah, if you call that mindless drawl 'teaching'!" Goyle agreed. He turned to Draco. "Why didn't you wait for us?"

Curling his nose in distaste, which wasn't hard to fake, Draco brushed past them towards his bed—the most luxurious of the lot, of course. "Why should I wait for you two? I've got better things to do."

"Right, you're always being pulled out of school to go on missions for the Dark Lord," Goyle said. "Got back from one yesterday, didn't you?"

Draco froze, then quickly modified the gesture to make it seem as if he was merely shrugging his outer robes of. "Yeah, that's right."

"What was it about this time?" Crabbe asked.

Draco tossed the robe aside casually, sitting down on the ottoman at the foot of his bed. "Same as always: hunting mudbloods."

"Oh yeah, no one shall escape the Dark Lord!" Goyle quoted, as ardent as any Death Eater, even though he and Crabbe were amateurs at best. Although they both had the Mark as well, they had never been summoned to any meetings like Draco had; in other words, they were far from being in the Dark Lord's inner circle.

"How many more until we round them all up, do you think, Draco?" Crabbe asked.

"Don't think we'll ever get them all," Goyle cut in. "My dad says they're like flies: as soon as you swat a few, more keep popping up. It's the muggles that are the problem, but they'll go next, you watch."

Draco kept his face blank, reminding himself not to judge them too harshly because they were just as brainwashed as he had been to believe in those things. Even now, to a certain extent, Draco did wonder at the fairness of muggleborns being given the same privileges as purebloods, and whether that wasn't a breakdown of tradition and of magical power; but he definitely didn't support the persecution of them as he once had. Not like this, never to this extent. Doing what Death Eaters did to muggleborns took something out of a person, made them mad, a monster.

Like my father...

Brushing past Crabbe and Goyle and leaving them to their heated fanaticism, Draco left the room on an excuse that he was going to the library to search up some more forbidden hexes. The Restricted Section was open now to only a few limited students, himself included, and while Draco didn't at all enjoy reading or studying—that was that mudblood Granger's expertise—the library was the only place where Crabbe and Goyle were sure not to follow him. And right now, Draco wanted to be alone. So much so that...

Stopping mid-stride, he turned and headed to another area of the castle entirely.

For days, he had been lying to Crabbe and Goyle, even to Severus about this—though the Headmaster no doubt already knew about this and was just turning a blind eye to it, humoring him. Draco had indeed been skipping classes and going out of Hogwarts, but not on missions for the Dark Lord like he'd been saying. On the contrary, what he was doing was foolish at best and maybe suicidal at worst. But it was all Draco had left when it all became too much.

Which was happening more and more, lately.

Up on the seventh floor of Hogwarts, standing in front of a nondescript wall, Draco closed his eyes and summoned up the room that he had spent most of his sixth year in, the room that in many ways he felt he had mastered: the Room of Requirement.

Stepping inside and relieved at his assured privacy, Draco immediately located the Vanishing Cabinet that he had restored just a few months ago. Since apparition in and out of Hogwarts was tightly monitored, just stepping out and away when he needed to wasn't an option. But the cabinet restored by Draco still worked perfectly, and all he'd had to do to keep his outings an complete secret was move the other Vanishing Cabinet to a secure location outside of Borgin and Burkes. It had been an expensive purchase, but one that Draco had been able to afford by tapping into his fortune at Gringotts. Just his luck that his account hadn't been accessed by anyone else and that the Dark Lord had seemed to all but forget about that secret way in and out of Hogwarts, now that the school was under his control anyway.

The chosen location for the second cabinet was, of all places, just at the edges of the Malfoy Manor property, outside the boundary line of their magical influence, but close enough to home that Draco could use it as a retreat if need be. Since neither home nor Hogwarts was safe right now though, Draco never used the cabinet to go home; instead, once he stepped out of the cabinet at the edge of his property, he disapparated to whatever location suited his fancy at the moment, usually a secluded place far, far away from everything and everyone he knew.

Once there, Draco would go about setting charms around the area, just a small circle of space where he would be unlikely to be bothered or questioned. Although he wouldn't be in any danger if he came across one of the many gangs of Snatchers that were out and about, he didn't want to be answerable to the Dark Lord or to his parents about what he was doing. His parents might not much care and even be understanding, but the Dark Lord...

There was no telling what he would do, even over such a small infringement.

It's not according to his will and anything beyond that is on death's row. All in all, best to keep it a secret then.

Stepping into the cabinet and then stepping back out once he was at his home, Draco immediately disapparated to the place he had chosen, a long-forgotten lakehouse that he had only been taken to as a child.

Opening his eyes once he landed, Draco saw that he was a bit off and that the house was at the other side of the lake, just across the way, but he wasn't about to apparate again and consume that much energy. Instead, he methodically went through his usual charms and then found a fallen log to sit on by the water. Turning away disgustedly from his own reflection—which now showed none of that haughty Malfoy manner, and instead only reflected an increasingly thin, tormented looking boy—he stared out across the water, letting his thoughts drift as easily as did the waves in the windy weather.

Belatedly, he realized that he was without his outer robes and thus couldn't stay as long in the fall weather without freezing, but it didn't matter since he was short on time anyway.

Just an hour or so even, and then he'd got back to his life, back to his nightmare.

A/N: So, a few things on Draco's change in personality that were never fully expanded on in the books or movies, but that I think nevertheless do reflect where Draco would have been at for this point in the timeline. Having him be tormented by Dumbledore's death was an easy starting point to work with, and from that I wanted to expand into maybe the beginnings of compassion for muggleborns and doubt for everything he's known so far, but please comment on whether you think this is a realistic connection or too much of a jump or anything.

More coming up next chapter, and please review, follow and favourite if you like the story so far!