Five years ago.

Despite the heat blowing out of the vents near the old Volkswagen's floorboards, Chief Petty Officer Draco Malfoy shivered in his peacoat. He'd grown up at Camden, Maine where the winters are ruthless. The milder weather in Virginia Beach seldom troubled him, but the memories of the mission he'd just come from sat in his chest like a block of ice, freeing him from the inside out.

Petty Officer Blaine Koontz from Kentucky had been one of those young guys that made other SEALs feel tired and used-up. He was five and a half of boundless energy. His freckled face and grinning countenance made every deadly objective seem like kid's play .

Hooyah! We get to parachute with a low open into enemy territory; run four miles with sixty-pound rucksacks over the dunes; set a perimeter around the oil well guarded by Iraqi National Gaurds and take it. No problem! We can do it!

And they had. Only, as they'd scurried accross the open sand towards the oil well, a bullet had caught Koontz in the side of the head. It hadn't killed him right away. He was still alive and rambling when Draco held him still so the corpsman could tape his fractured skull.

After sixteen years of being a SEAL, Draco thought he'd heard and seen everything. He was wrong. The exclamation s tumbling out of Koontz's mouth had raised the hairs of the back of his neck. It seemed that Koontz haven't been so happy-go-lucky after all. The twenty-two year old had flirted boldly with the Grim Reaper for a reason: Death couldn't be a fate any worse than Koontz's sadistic father.

Koontz hadn't died unlit a Nightstalker dropped into hostile airspace, dodging rocket-propelled grenades to pick him up and whirsk him away. Though his death had shaken Draco , time for grief was a luxury he and his men could ill afford, so they had pressed on to finish the mission_a mission that had lasted 72 sleepless hours. Not only had the SEALs commandeered the oil well, but the's had to defend it from counterattack, until the Army's seventh Infantry Battalion arrived to relieve them.

Draco, known for his relentless pursuit of an objective, was beyond exhausted. The memory of koontz's childhood horrors abraded his frayed nerves as he creased his speed through the suburban sprawl under a cold, January moon.

The entrance of his neighborhood came into view, and he downshifted, turning the corner without touching the brakes. He ached for relief. Relief that would came the instant he scooped his infant son into his arms and gazed down at the innocent contours of his cherubic face. Relief that would be complete once he found release in his wife's soft arms.

His son was Scorpius. And he was Draco's joy.

His wife was Astoria. At one time, he' d fancied her center of his universe, and his every thought had revolved around her. But that was before he came to realise that her beauty was as shallow as her conscience. She was the mother of his son,however. It had been his choice to marry her, and he stubbornly stood by his decision.

His brick two-story home stood at the end of a cul-de-sac. Every month the mortgage sucked away half of his paycheck, but Astoria had wanted it, so he'd bought it for her. The windows were dark at this late hour, his little family sleeping . Draco cut the engine and glided into the driveway.

Dragging his rucksack behind him, he got out and followed the granite walkway that cut across the frost covered lawn. With stiff fingers he unlocked his front door, his heart beating faster to know that one-year-old Scorpius was upstairs, tucked in to his crib. He could almost feel the warmth of his sturdy little frame against his chest,smell his sweet, baby scent.

As he pushed his way inside, the warmth he anticipated failed to greet him. The air inside was cold and undisturbed; the silence tomblike the smells faded.

With a stab of fear, Draco flicked the light switch. Glaring light confirmed what his other senses were telling him.

"Astoria"

His anxious voice echoed off the empty walls and high ceilings.

"No" he breathed, dropping his rucksack.

He took the stairs three at a time, raced down the wide hall, threw open the door of the nursery. The relentless moon displayed a room as empty as the rest of the house. There wasn't any need to turn on the lights. The bear-on-the-rocking-chair border was all that remained.

"Oh God" he groaned, lurching back into the hallway and stalking to the master bedroom. He barreled through the double doors and stared. Gone. Everything was gone.

With a shiver, he pivoted, going back to the nursery .

" Scorpius" he moaned, feeling as if his bowels had been ripped from him. He fell into his knees where the baby's crib had stood, bowed his face into his hands, and wept.