Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter.

April 1992

Silver.

It was alive and it was coming (for him). The air around him became cold with dread.

The Silver was coming (and it was death and wrong and evil).

The hallway he was running down was long (long, long, long and endless), but he kept running anyway (because if it caught him-)

He turned right down another hallway And left at the next. It wasn't until he collapsed at his mother's feet in her favorite sitting room, that he realized the endless hallways had been familiar and that he'd been running through the corridors of his childhood home.

Silver, silver, silver. Even as his mother bent down to hold his face in her soft (and gentle) hands, he could feel it getting (close and closer). The Silver was hungry.

"Mum, it's coming," he managed to gasp out. He felt so tired and scared and cold. He needed his mother to tell him that it would be alright.

But she didn't. She just smiled at him softly. "Goodbye, Son," she said, before she simply faded from view.

"Mum!" But she was gone (forever and ever). He started to run again. He could feel the Silver draw nearer, but he just ran faster (faster, faster, faster). He didn't want it to catch him. (Who would?)

He came across a staircase and took it two, three, five steps at a time. The hallway at the bottom was like all the others, but he knew where he was running to. His father's study was on this floor. Surely his father would know what to do.

Left at Great Aunt Silvia's Portrait, right at the ugly, green vase. He was almost there (almost, almost, almost). He was almost-

The world turned itself over and he found himself knocked flat on his back. His father standing in front of him. His gray (cold and sharp and far, far away) eyes boring into him.

"F-father," he stammered as he scrambled to his feet.

He could still feel the Silver closing in (it was making the most terrible sound), but his father seemed indifferent and unworried, so Draco tried to feel either emotion (he tried to).

"Son, when I die, everything that I own will be yours. Not just the Manor and the Malfoy fortune. Everything, our family's honor, debts, past deeds. You will inherit everything."

Draco took a step back from his father. The words 'inherit everything' ringing in his head like doom. "Father why can't I come home?"

But his father just smiled (curved his lips) at him with his grey (and hollow and empty) eyes. "Passed from blood to blood Draco. That's how things are. There's no escaping the truth."

Lucius Malfoy wasn't going to save him either. (No one could save him.)

And Draco knew it was a dream. He'd known all along (because he wasn't allowed to go home, mothers didn't just disappear, fathers never failed).

The Silver was almost upon them. Everything was turning painfully bright. It was burning (burning, burning, burning) Silver. And then his father was burning too (burning Silver). He didn't seem to notice, his eyes remained fixed on him (like they were telling a story that nobody knew). He didn't seem to feel as the fire engulfed him and burned him all up (all gone, all away, all gone away).

But Draco could feel it. He could feel it as the fire traveled up his father's legs and arms (as it curled around his heart). Draco felt it for him as he watched his father burn (burn Silver). Burn, burn, burn away.

It made the most dreadful noise (it made Draco's blood run cold and his heart hesitate to beat). And then his father was no more and the Silver was there. It was looking at him, burning (knowing everything no one wanted to know).

It looked at him and smiled.

There was something comforting about the nighttime sky. Sure the stars moved, but they were always there (even during the day, even when they weren't in sight). Draco liked that about them. And when he couldn't sleep at night he would go to the Astronomy Tower and look at the stars and try to remember all their stories. He wasn't always calmed by these stories (there was plenty of blood, death and sadness in the sky), but he was always distracted. Distracted was better than nothing.

He wasn't even distracted though. His dream lingered behind his eyes, just out of sight (waiting, smiling, hungry). He tried to trick his body into thinking he was relaxed. He had laid down, with his hands behind his head (but his hands were shaking and his breaths were too quick). The moon was absent from the sky, but he could see Silver glimmering in the corner of his eye (reminding him that it wouldn't go away).

The soft crack from behind him might have alarmed him, but he knew there was only one person who could apparate in Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, and Draco had no reason to fear him.

"Ah, Mr. Malfoy, enjoying the stars?" the headmaster of Hogwarts asked in his normal cheery way. Draco's father always said that Dumbledore was a fool. He shuddered. Thinking of Lucius Malfoy made him think about-

He shrugged from his position on the ground. He did not greet him. He didn't even look at the old man.

"I hear things have been difficult for you. I heard that there was an incident with some of the first year Slytherins just yesterday."

Draco kept his face indifferent.

Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle were followers. They couldn't be held any more accountable for their actions than water flowing through a pipe (mindless and cold). They didn't mean anything when they knocked him to the ground or when they spat on him. They were just doing as they were told. (Did anyone ever do anything else?)

And he couldn't fault Blaise Zabini for directing them either (for he was just doing as he was taught). Draco was their enemy because he was different (blue, blue, blue) and different was not to be tolerated. Draco was taught that too (by his father and by his mother).

Draco didn't try to explain any of that to Dumbledore. He was sure it would be a waste of time and he was too tired to care. He shrugged again. "I'm fine," he said. Just like he'd told McGonagall all those months ago (like he told Flitwick every time the man asked, like he told himself. Malfoy's were always fine, great, good, just fine after all). "Just looking at the stars."

He heard the man make a low humming noise, but he refused to look at him (refused to). He wasn't up in the Astronomy Tower to see an old man with a long beard.

"I see. Well, it's still regrettable that these things happen. I will strive to make sure they don't."

Draco laughed at him (cold and mirthless). "Strive all you want. Regret all you want. I don't care." He closed his eyes for a long moment. "And I certainly won't notice."

He heard the sharp intake of breath, but his words could not be denied. Dimly, from the corners of his mind, he could hear his mother scolding him for being rude (his father hating him for being weak).

"I'm sorry you feel that way," the old fool eventually said.

Draco was sorry that it was that way.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

(But sorry didn't do anything.)

Draco maintained his silence and smiled (just a little) when heard the old fool disapparate away.

Without any conscious thought he searched for and found his namesake snaking through the sky. There were so many stars in the sky, but Draco wondered if the Draco in the sky was lonely. After all, there were plenty of people at Hogwarts and Draco felt much more alone than he ever had at Malfoy Manor with just his parents and house elves for company.

He tried to rest a little, before the sun showed up, but he couldn't relax (the Silver was burning inside his eyelids). He settled for staring blankly at where he knew the moon should be (thinking about going home and seeing his parents again, and making sure they hadn't disappeared).

That the Silver hadn't taken them from him.