A/N: Chapter warnings for; Explicit language and mild implied/referenced torture.

Elen and I worked very hard on plotting this fic, every little detail is accounted for to drive the story forward and present enjoyable reading material. That being said, Harry and Draco's relationship might seem like it's on a slow burner for now, but all will be rectified very soon.

"All great achievements require time." -Maya Angelou

Next update Saturday, 9th May.

Chapter Five; The Boy In the Mirror

…

"I look into my glass,

And view my wasting skin,

And say, "Would God it came to pass,

My heart had shrunk as thin!"

-Thomas Hardy (I Look Into My Glass)

...

It's dark outside the window, the clouds a dark, almost murky blackish-grey, as rain droplets furiously pelt the fogged glass, so the only thing he can see is his own distorted reflection staring back at him, eyes hollow and face gaunt. The gentle rocking of the Hogwarts Express moving can lull him right to sleep if he allows them to.

He hasn't slept much in the last week. Every time he closes his eyes, he's assaulted by the same image again and again. The times when exhaustion does manage to draw him into restless unconsciousness, he is plunged into nightmares. Nightmares he can't seem to be able to wake himself from. And so Draco has taken to staying awake as much as possible.

He knows it's ridiculous, and that he can't stay awake forever, but the days he can stay awake are the days he won't have to see his mother's face twisted in agony, even as they are few and far between. The effects are quite visible on his face, and he hadn't done anything about it until he had to actually get on the train, where he had taken the time to at least glamour the dark circles nestled under his eyes.

They're burning as he stares and stares and stares at his reflection as if willing it to get better. Pansy and Blaise have long since stopped bothering him, finally taking the hint that he isn't in the mood to talk. A few times, he saw Pansy sending him narrowed-eyed glances, and it's putting him on edge. So, she's the eye-keeper, Draco hums to himself. The Dark Lord, or perhaps Bellatrix, has probably told her to keep an eye on him, make sure he's on the right lane, and all this must have made her suspicious. And not in a good way, she is suspicious of him, wondering if his loyalties might be wavering. They are.

Draco wishes that the compartment seats would swallow her up on the spot. That's how much he hates her, and how little he actually cares. And now he will have to deal with her the whole year. She can go snitch to whoever the hell she likes, she could bring Bella in his dorm to torture him in the middle of the night, even go tattle to the Dark Lord himself… Draco doesn't care. He is sure he will care if Bella was to start torturing him, but right now? Not so much.

Blaise isn't so subtle with his glances either, but while Pansy's contain an undercurrent of malice and threats, Blaise merely looks concerned. They don't know his mother is dead.

They know something must have happened, but not what.

They don't know, and it's driving him insane, he wants to kick and scream and yell and tell everyone how his mother had been killed so brutally, snuffed out of existence by one last wave of a wand. No one is aware of her suffering, what she had gone through in her last living hours. What she'd been forced to endure at the hands of her own sister.

It feels insulting. She deserved better, so much better than not to even be acknowledged in her death.

That's probably why the Dark Lord 'forbade' his father from announcing the news. Torture and gore wasn't enough for him, he wanted oblivion. He wanted Narcissa Malfoy to be background noise in existence, just a whispered name at gatherings, spoken as a lesson, a warning, and passed onto the wind as people slowly ceased to remember such a name at all.

It's a fate worse than death.

His lips are pressed into a thin line as he thinks back to her funeral. It should have been grand, there should have been hundreds of people present, paying their respects to Narcissa Malfoy. Flowers and speeches and feasts in her honor.

But instead, what she'd gotten was a transfigured casket and three people. Father had been allowed to take her body, and he'd told Draco to be grateful that they were getting even that much, and in that moment, Draco wanted nothing more than to lock Lucius up in the wooden box with his mother.

He shouldn't be thankful for getting to bury his mother in secret.

Severus had been there too, a silent presence. He hadn't spoken a word. Draco had glared at him instead of what he really wanted to do, to curse him into oblivion, to stomp his feet and demand how dare he show up at the funeral after letting that happen?

But in the end, Draco hadn't said anything. All the energy had been drained out of him, every last bit of it. He'd just stood and watched, eyes dry, hands clenched at his sides in an attempt to stem the shaking. His father's eyes had been glistening, and Draco cursed him in his head with every foul name under the sun, because if Draco couldn't cry, then he didn't have any right to cry either. No one did, everything about her death had been unfair, and he refuses to validate that unfairness by throwing a tantrum about it.

In the end, after his father and Severus had left-Neither of them insisting that Draco tag along- Draco had sat beside the headstone for a long time. So long that his limbs had started cramping, and even the shaking had stopped. He'd wondered what Mother would have said if she had seen him sitting cross-legged in the dirt, and then quickly stifled the thought.

Before leaving, he'd laid a single daffodil over the freshly dug up earth, in front of the headstone.

Draco leans his head back on the chair, finally breaking away from his reflection, which doesn't even look like him anymore. Crabbe and Goyle are stuffing themselves full of chocolate frogs and sugar quills. Usually, by this time, Draco would have gone on a tour of the train with them trailing behind him, to antagonise Potter and his friends.

Right now, just the thought of getting up from his seat for anything other than getting out of the train when they reach Hogwarts, makes him slump further in his seat.

Blaise gives him another look, surprised that Draco has been reduced to a slouching lump of a body, soulless in every sense of the word. It's also taken as a warning and Draco can read the message clearly 'Slytherins don't slouch, Malfoys even less so'. He couldn't care less.

Draco stares back at Blaise, challenging him to voice his thoughts and the dark-skinned boy only holds his gaze for a moment before glancing back at his book.

"Draco?" Crabbe calls his name with a full mouth, dried chocolate smudges cover his face and were it any other day, Draco would have sneered at him.

He looks at Crabbe, silently prompting him to speak up before he mildly remembers that Crabbe and Goyle cannot take such cues.

"Yes?" he tries to sound casual, nonchalant. As if he still had a mother, but his attempts prove to be futile, he still sounds weak and strained.

Crabbe and Goyle exchange a look before Crabbe holds out a chocolate frog out to Draco with his smudged hand.

Draco just takes it and then leans back against the seat once again, his fingers lax around the chocolate frog, and his eyes slowly drooping before he forces them apart with a subtle pinch under his wrist. He cannot fall asleep on the train.

Blaise puts his book away. "Why don't we go look for the trolley ourselves, Draco? I want some droobles,"

Goyle reaches into his pile while trying to stuff his mouth with four sugar wands but Blaise merely raises a brow at him and sneers. "No thanks, " he says to Goyle and reaches for Draco's hand, it's much warmer closed around his fingers, enough to jolt Draco to a standing position as well.

"We will be back shortly," Blaise comments casually and steps out of the compartment, dragging Draco behind him. Draco willingly goes along.

Blaise doesn't speak to him as they pass other students crowding the cramped halls, some of them give Draco a weird look, taking a double-take as they get a good look at him, and there is a subdued murmur or two trailing behind them, but Blaise strides on, unheeded to any of the whispers.

Finally, they come to stand before the train's bathroom, Blaise waits a moment for the hall to get less crowded then pushes Draco in, quickly sliding in himself and locking the door behind him.

"If someone saw-" Draco isn't sure where he's going with this. If someone saw them… what? Who cared.

"I don't care," Blaise snaps, crossing his arms. "I don't know what happened to you, and I don't know how long this," he gestures at Draco and the blonde raises his eyebrows "- is going to last. But you need to get it together, Draco,"

Draco doesn't answer him, but looks past the other boy's shoulder, catching his face in the mirror gazing back at him for the first time in almost five days. He barely dressed himself in his robes today. Mother would have that same pinched expression on her face at his disheveled appearance.

"Are you listening? " Blaise snaps the words, unaware of the involuntary shudder that racks through Draco like a jolt of lightning.

"Are you listening?" Bella's rotting breath against his face, burning into his nostril.

"Never say those words to me again," Draco grits the words out by the sheer force of will, still gazing at himself in the mirror. His image stares back at him, weak, pathetic, pale and shaking. Draco doesn't recognise him… the boy in the mirror, he wishes that it stays there in that mirror, and stops following the real him around.

Blaise just gives him a look. "You're drawing unnecessary attention to yourself. You need to get a hold of it before anyone else notices, Draco. Do you hear me? Your life's on the line, it must be or you wouldn't act like this. "

He nods at the basin. "Wash your face, and fix your clothes. You don't need this now, you need the old Draco Malfoy back in order to survive or you won't make it past the common room. "

With that, Blaise turns and leaves the small bathroom, softly closing the door behind him and leaving Draco all by himself, sitting haggardly on the closed toilet seat, feeling slightly nauseous.

##

The familiar hustle and bustle of platform nine and three quarters on September 1st was welcomed after the chaos and uncertainty of the past few days. Harry let the sounds of owls, cats, and other animals, of people, saying goodbye, the mundane spells, cover him like his favorite blanket.

Grimmauld Place was in shambles, in every sense of the word. During his stay there Harry saw every sort of people flooing the headquarters at all hours of the day, some faces that were familiar and others that weren't, some were severely injured- and carefully kept away from Harry's sight- and others just tensed.

True to Ron's word, they all set to cleaning out the rooms to make it somewhat habitable, while Hermione insisted on finishing up their homework before it came to cramming everything overnight, this being their O.W.L year, she sounded a bit too high strung and it caused her and Ron to go at each other like cats and dogs… honestly, Harry wished they would just snog and get this over with already, but he didn't interfere much.

Harry got to spend some time with the real Sirius, which surprisingly meant spending as much time with Remus as well since those two were attached at the hip; whenever the other man was in the room Sirius was either already with him or distracted by his presence, as if always eager to start a new conversation, or crack a nasty joke for the werewolf's sake, or basically do anything but clean the house under Mrs. Weasley's supervision, which led to some hilarious dialogue exchange between Mrs. Weasley and Sirius whilst cleaning.

Not that Harry was complaining much.

Sirius, while not as much fun as his imaginary counterpart, was much more invested in Harry than he had been expecting, he pulled Harry and Remus into a few pranks and adored getting on Mrs. Weasley's nerves, much to the woman's simultaneous annoyance and amusement.

Harry liked being around Remus as well, the man was a constant quiet force and quite knowledgeable, there were days when Hermione would trail behind the man like a lost puppy, with a textbook in her hands, asking a myriad of questions at any time of the day while Remus politely obliged and answered as many as he could.

Argent wasn't mentioned again. And Harry and the others weren't allowed in any meetings, much to the boy's ongoing frustration.

This morning, Moody, Shacklebolt- Harry's rude kidnapper- and Tonks arrived with a few cars from the ministry to transfer Harry safely to the train station, an occurrence that excited Mr. Weasley beyond words, and Harry too, upon seeing the man jovially herding the children into the car while explaining about each part and the dynamics. His funny pronunciation and child-like wonder were enough for Harry to get out of his gloom regarding the whole 'prefect' fiasco.

Ron and Hermione were Prefects, so what? Harry tried to sell the position short, forcing himself to accept the change with the least amount of jealousy. So what if he had been miserable and depressed all summer? That wasn't a valid enough reason to receive a prefect's badge. Besides, Ron deserved some recognition for once.

So Harry hugged them both and tried to sound as excited as he should have been feeling, smiling widely at the dinner party thrown for this very same occasion as he felt withered and sullen inside. His friends deserved this more than anyone, Harry thinks to himself

In his game, he imagines the three of them with matching badges, and Ron with a better broom still, because even though his new 'Cleansweep' had been a tremendous upgrade, Harry thought that a Nimbus would have made him even happier.

As they reach the train, Ron and Hermione don't let him sit alone, and quickly bunch Harry with Ginny's compartment, where Neville and another girl are sitting by themselves, Harry takes his friends' trunks and sits next to Neville, exchanging a quick polite greeting as Ginny introduces the Ravenclaw girl as 'Luna Lovegood'.

"Are those radishes?" asks Harry, pointing at the girl's earrings.

Luna nods slowly. "Keeps the Wrackspurts away."

Harry takes her word for it, and let's the other three entertain him, distracting him from another sulking feat that he seems so prone to, lately.

Nearly two hours later, while the sky is the color of Harry's school robes and rain pelts the windows, Ron barges in, looking downright exhausted, followed by Hermione.

"Merlin, kill me now," Ron moans and plops down next to Harry, wordlessly reaching for the sugar quill in Harry's hand. Harry smirks at him in wry amusement. "That bad?" he asks.

"Worse!"

"Stop it, Ron, honestly," says Hermione, taking Crookshanks in her arms before settling down next to Ginny. "It wasn't that bad," she explains. "We were just doing rounds on the train, "

"The whole train!" Ron retorts with a full mouth.

"What else did you expect, Ronald?"

The boy shrugs helplessly, "Dishing out detentions, messing with Slytherin gits, obviously,"

"Anything exciting happened at the meeting?" Harry asks half-heartedly.

"Well, we saw Malfoy," Ron starts. "He looked bloody awful."

Harry isn't surprised that Malfoy had been made a perfect, with the way he's been kissing Snape's ass for years. What does surprise him, though, is that he looks anything resembling the word 'awful'. He cannot imagine that pompous boy ever putting up with even one strand of his stupid blonde hair out of place.

"Really?"

"Yeah, one would think someone died, or something," Ron says, looking delighted at the prospect of seeing Malfoy sunken so low. Harry is getting a bad feeling about this, but he doesn't say anything. Hermione shoots Ron an irritated look, "You shouldn't say that, Ron."

"Yeah, whatever. Maybe Bellatrix got to him, paid him a little 'family visit'," Ron says the name the same way someone says the 'boogeyman'.

"Ron!"

But Harry isn't listening to Hermione berate him, and as his mind catches up with what Ron said, he asks, "Bellatrix? Why would she get to him?" that doesn't sound right, he thinks. The only Bellatrix Harry knows is Bellatrix Lestrange, serving her time in Azkaban with her husband.

"She's Malfoy's aunt, y'know? Don't tell this to Sirius, but they have a 'thing' in their family-"

"Ron!"

"They might have inherent insanity! That's all I'm saying, Hermione, calm down!"

Harry has no interest in what runs in whose family, he has much bigger issues as of the moment.

"Isn't she in Azkaban? " Harry asks, leaning on the edge of his seat, his mind whirring and his heart beating loudly against his chest.

It cannot be, he thinks. It cannot be what he's thinking.

"No," this time, it's Neville who speaks up, his voice quivering ever so slightly. Harry turns to him, noticing how pale he has gone. He remembers what Dumbledore had told him, seemingly a whole lifetime ago, about Neville's parents, and how they'd been driven insane under Bellatrix Lesterange's wand.

"What do you mean, no?" he asks Neville, maybe more sharply than he had meant to sound.

"Harry," Hermione starts slowly, brows furrowing, " The breakout from Azkaban? She was included in the list of escapees," upon seeing Harry's blank look, her eyes widen. "How did you not know? Most of them were death eaters. Bellatrix and her husband were included."

Time stops for Harry, at least that's how he imagines it, his breath catches in his chest and his eyes slowly widen, heedless to his friends calling on him.

"Are you alright, Harry?" Ginny asks, but he isn't listening to her. Bellatrix was free. That is shocking enough in itself. Bellatrix is free and that means… His dream starts replaying itself over and over again in his head, Mrs. Malfoy's blood splattered against dark marble floors, Malfoy's face and his screams, horrified and otherworldly.

"When?" He asks hoarsely.

"It was all over the Daily Prophet about two months ago, how did you not know? You were getting the Daily Prophet, right?" Ron says. Harry winces.

"No, I- I canceled the subscription," he mumbles, a plaguing sense of dread growing in his chest.

"Oh, well, it was printing bullshit most of the time."

"How did we never talk about it?"

Hermione shrugs. "You never asked."

He fights a scowl, before his mind turns to more pressing matters, "Were there," he swallows, almost afraid of the answer, "Were there any- er, casualties?" Mrs. Malfoy's face flashes before his eyes. "-Caused by Bellatrix? In pureblood families."

Ron is frowning at him, "Why would there be deaths in pureblood families?" he sounds puzzled. "It's all they're about, isn't it? Blood purity and all that shit? Their asses are safer than ours. And, if you're talking about the 'blood traitor' bunch," he makes exaggerated air quotes, "Then, nope. There weren't. As far as Blood traitors go, there's not that many of them."

"Oh," he says. He doesn't know what to think.

"We'd know if there were, of course," Hermione says, "It would probably be all over the front page of the Daily Prophet. They're purebloods, bold and important and apparently above others" she leans back, Crookshanks purrs on her lap as she distractedly pats his head. "Unlike the small columns that muggleborns or half-bloods who lose their lives to Death Eater attacks get, somewhere at the back of the paper." She sounds bitter and angry.

"High and Above up their own arse, yes," says Ron, he's rolling his eyes.

Harry sympathises with her because she's not wrong. The victims and missing persons are barely mentioned in the Daily Prophet these days. He feels a flare of anger at the Ministry's refusal to acknowledge Voldemort's return.

"Right," Harry mumbles. He wants to laugh at himself or hit himself. Of course, it was just a dream. He shouldn't have thought otherwise. What had he been thinking? That he could now see things that were happening miles away? The idea sounds ridiculous.

But he cannot completely banish the small tendril of doubt that had crept up in his mind, festering.

What if Bellatrix Lestrange really killed her sister with her son and husband watching? What if it had really happened and what if Harry had been the only witness?

What if?