As the last days of school drifted to a close, Draco found himself dreading the summer holidays. He had a number of reasons for this: not least of these was the realisation that he would face a summer of just he and his mother, entertaining themselves with ideas of their third's suffering in Azkaban. He sighed and glanced over to one of the beds by the windows.
It was long empty, it occupant fully healed and removed to where he need not suffer he endless stares all day. She was stuck trying to torment him at dinner or breakfast and even that time was drawing to a close. Not before time he thought. He begun to feel a little more the comfortable in her presence and that was unacceptable in his eyes.
He shook his head and tried to concentrate on his task, which at the moment was storing Madam Pomfrey's Pepper-up Potion. Snape had made a large batch of the stuff but had left it to him to bottle and label it. It was easy, if tedious work, since each vial had to be to an exact measurement and so required a certain amount of concentration.
He didn't look up when he heard the doors of the hospital wing open, many student came to the nurse for last minute remedies he'd found, and they didn't like Draco watching them as they talked to her, even if he couldn't hear. However, a polite cough near him made him look up.
"Ah, Mr Malfoy, how industrious of you," Dumbledore said, nodding to him. Draco wasn't the least bit startled to see him, he'd expected a visit from the headmaster before the summer was out, he concentrated on filling the last vial before he replied.
"Thank you, sir," he replied quietly.
"How has your time passed? Well I hope?" Dumbledore peered at him over his half-moon glasses.
"I've been kept busy," Draco hedged.
"Good, good." He went on quickly then. "May I see the hour-glass please?"
Draco pulled it from inside his robes, where he kept it around his neck on its chain. He pulled the chain over his head and handed it to Dumbledore who examined curiously.
"Hmmm, well, I estimate that you have completed nearly 35 hours since you were sent here," Dumbledore mused.
"Nearly 38," Draco corrected, he'd been counting. Dumbledore gave a little smile.
"Yes, well, as agreed you will be completing your work at St. Mungos during the summer. You will start there on the first of next month. Please report to Mr Crepsley when you get there." He handed Draco a green sock with orange trimming, Draco looked at it in distaste. "That is your port-key to and from work. It activates at five to nine in the morning precisely and will bring you back to wherever you port-keyed from next time you touch it."
He seemed to be waiting for Draco to say something then.
"Thank you?" That didn't seem to be it, but Dumbledore let it go.
"Good luck, Mr Malfoy." He stared at something behind Draco. "Looks like I'm not the only one who wishes to speak to you, so I'll say good day."
He left then before Draco good get a reply out. He turned then to see who has come in while he'd been speaking with the headmaster. To his surprise it was Hermione, standing just inside the door, looking like she had only just realised what a bad idea it had been to come to him.
"What do you want?" He didn't so much as frown at her but she flinched.
"I… I just wanted, I mean. Thank you," she finally managed.
"For what?" he asked, surprised.
"You helped me, when I was in here. You helped me when you didn't have to and more often than you needed to," she said all this in a rush, as if the faster she got the words out the easier it would be.
"Don't mention it." He did growl at her this time.
"No, really I mean it."
"So do I."
Hermione bowed her head and Draco could see her wringing her hands.
"Well, that's what I had to say," she mumbled.
"Duly noted," he said sarcastically before standing up from the preparation table and turning his back on her. He heard the door open and close as she left and watched, emotionless, as golden grains of sand flew up the hourglass, now left on the table, adding more time to the work he would have to complete.
His homecoming was oddly ceremonial. His mother greeted him in the huge foyer of the mansion, taking his hands in hers and kissing both cheeks, addressing him as Lord Malfoy and welcoming him home in a strangely proud voice. The appropriate reply came naturally to him, though he said it in a hollow voice.
He'd been educated in the courtly manners and repertoire since he was five years old and had always known that he would take over his title when he came of age, he just hadn't expected that it would come to him like this.
His father imprisoned, his mother… Her gaze were distant, far-seeing, and her pupils dilated. He been in the hospital wing long enough to recognise some of the effects of sedative potions.
Ceremony over, she wandered off, leaving him to bring his trunk up to his rooms on his own. With the loss of their house-elf in his second year at Hogwarts and the loss of their human servants with the seizing of the Malfoy assets, Draco and his mother were left to fend for themselves.
They were lucky to have the house, but since that had passed directly to Draco along with the title of Lord of the Manor, the Ministry couldn't touch it. Along with the money Narcissa had inherited from her father, who had left Draco the property and title, they would manage till either Lucius was cleared of all charges or Draco came of legal age and could claim the full of his inheritance money.
Draco carried his trunk easily up to the second floor landing where his room was located, Quidditch training and menial labour in the hospital wing over the last few weeks had added to his physique and unpacked his clothes without remark. His one thought was of what his father would say if he could see his only son now.
But the days following his return home and before his due date for starting in Mungos passed slowly. His mother had grown paranoid in light of recent events, and what ever potion she was taking 'for her nerves' had only added to that, and would hardly let Draco out the door of the house. Being cooped up indoors on warm sunny days in a house that never seemed to heat was not the way Draco like to spend his time.
He even tried keeping busy by starting his summer homework, sitting in one of the many leather armchairs in his Fathers library, gazing longingly at the books he still could not touch.
Mungos never changed. Or so Draco surmised, as at four minutes to nine his garish port-key had deposited him in the reception. Still busy, and full of sick people.
He sighed, quickly followed by as grimace as he decided, punishment or no, he would not be late, Malfoys hadn't kept their good name through the years because of their looks, well not only their looks anyway. They were impeccable businessmen to the core and were never late, their only fault was linking themselves with supposedly infallible 'Dark Lords'.
He hurried to the reception desk and joined the queue of three to ask to be pointed to the Office of Mr Crepsley, then following the directions given by the bored clerk he soon found himself outside the office of Mr Crepsley, knocking on the door.
So his surprise, Draco found working with the Healers in St. Mungos more satisfying than he'd expected. He lucky to find himself doing more than just 'grunt work' as the younger Healers, only a few years out of Training College themselves, took delight on pressing their knowledge on the young Hogwarts student and he was often brought on their rounds of the wards, learning more about Magical Maladies than he ever thought possible.
In contrast his home life had turned even colder. His mother, completely addicted to the sedative potions she was imbibing, had taken to her room and rarely left, and when she did he found her completely disconcerted by her surroundings. She would call for her house elf and then become enraged when he wouldn't show up.
The absence of Lucius greatly disturbed her. Draco found himself covering up his absence by saying her was away on business. He hated himself for lying to her and hated himself more for being unable to help her.
He threw himself into his work, almost being disappointed every evening when he had to go home. He soon achieved a reputation for being the most hardworking student there, and he wasn't yet a Healer. He was approached by Mr Crepsley after nearly three weeks was up and his time at the hospital was coming to a close.
And when Mr Crepsley offered him a place there for the rest of the summer he quickly accepted.
"Mother? Mother?" he knocked loudly on her bedroom door, movement hampered by the dinner tray he was carrying. He sighed loudly when he heard no sign of movement inside. He put the tray on the floor and opened the door, before entering tray in hand to find an empty room.
"Mother?" The room was the mess he'd come to expect in the last few weeks and her bathroom door was left open, but the entire suite was in darkness. Draco put the tray on a side dresser and muttered the charm to activate the lights. He called again before he started to get worried.
He checked the bathroom to no avail before he started walking down the hall checking all the rooms. Within fifteen minutes he was panicking. He hadn't seen her since he'd left that morning so she could have had hours to get well and truly lost.
Hours passed and he found no sign of her. He'd checked all over the house, even the kitchens before summoning his broomstick and flying all over the grounds off the Manor before finally accepting that she was nowhere to be found and he would have to call for help. He trudged back to the house and pushed the open door back.
He wasn't paying much attention as he walked into the drawing room and a cool voice startled him out of his daze.
"Hello, Draco." He looked up, startled, into the dark, wide-eyed gaze of Bellatrix Lestrange. She smiled widely at him. "My, how you've grown. I haven't seen you since you were a baby." She moved closer to him, arms wide as if to huge him, but he moved back out of reach.
"Now, Draco," a deep voice reproached him, "that's no way to greet family."
Draco turned sharply as Rodolphus Lestrange came in the open doorway behind him.
"What do you want?" he asked, barking out the words.
Rodulphus tut-tutted.
"That's no way to talk to family, now is it Draco?"
"The Dark Lord wishes to see you," Bellatrix told him, in the manner of one delivering great news. Draco swallowed past the lump of terror in his throat.
"And if I were to refuse. It's not exactly polite to break into someone's house you know!"
"But Draco," Bellatrix purred, "we were invited in. Didn't you wonder where you're dear mother had gotten to?" She eyed the broomstick he'd dropped when she had startled him. "She is waiting for you Draco."
Again Draco was forced to swallow past a lump in his throat as he struggled to breathe. He nodded at his wild-looking aunt.
"Ok," he said. "I'll come."