Disclaimer: The lyrics posted below(Im Still Here)belong to John Rzeznik and the Goo Goo Dolls, and I am in no way profieting from using them. They were featured in Disney movie Treasure Planet. if it seems somewhat familar to you.
Okay well on to the next Chapter: Hope you all enjoy it!

Chapter 3

I'm Not Here

This isn't reality. He wasn't sitting in the chair, staring out the window. He wasn't being lectured, yelled at, nor threatened. This can't be reality, he wasn't even there. He was oceans away from reality, on some distant shore, and it was just him, only him.

"Draco! Are you even paying attention?" Draco was suddenly yanked out of his trance. "Stop staring out the window, you've seen the sea hundreds of times, Merlin knows, we live next to it!" Said a man, standing over by a large desk in the center of the room. The man had long blonde hair that was oulled to the back of his neck with a tie.

"Im sorry. I won't do it again next time, I promise." Draco winced inwardly at the sound of his own words, knowing how feeble and pathetic they sounded.

"You'll forgive me Draco if I don't think your promises are worth very much. Promises, excuses– all they are is evasions– evasions of your duties and responsibilities! All you care about is yourself and your own pleasures. You don't think of the consequences of what you do, has on this family.

"That's not true! I've heard it hundreds of times already and I'm tired of listening your useless lectures, just because I'm not you, doesn't make me wrong! You don't know me– you don't know who I am or what I think!" Draco burst out angrily.

I am a question to the world,
Not an answer to be heard.
All a moment that's held in your arms.
And what do you think you'd ever say?
I won't listen anyway…
You don't know me,
And I'll never be what you want, me to be.

"Think?"

Draco should have known better than to try and justify what he had done. His father obviously wasn't listening at all. He'd probably been preparing this little speech of his, for some time now, and he was going to say it no matter what Draco said to him.

"Think?" Lucius repeated. "I don't believe you think at all. You certainly don't act as if you do. Don't you know that people see you – and talk. Don't you know everything that you do reflects on my position? Don't you know that you have a family honor to live up to?

And what do you think you'd understand?
I'm a boy, no, I'm a man..
You can take me and throw me away.
And how can you learn what's never shown?
Yeah, you stand here on your own.
They don't know me 'cause I'm not here.

Every time he tried to talk to his father, it always came back to this: duties, responsibilities, behave like a good little Malfoy and make everything easy for the essential and powerful Lucius! "It's always the same thing: All he wants to do, is change me." Draco thought bitterly, but didn't say it. As much as he hated his father, he still feared him, and that fear is what kept him prisoner. Draco felt his attention begin to falter again, and start to shift back to the sea.

"Come now Draco," Lucius said, interrupting the silence. "We best be leaving if we wish to remain on schedule."

"What?" Draco said, the words slipping from of his mouth before he could think. "Where are we going?" He said correcting himself.

"Don't tell me you forgot again."Lucius sighed. "I try and I try, Draco, but you continuously push against me. I spend my long days in thankless labor trying to build for your future and you spend yours attempting to destroy everything I'm working so hard to create! It seems that the harder I push you to be better, the harder you seem to push back! I'm not here to fight you Draco! And as your father, I know what is best for you! Now since your to stupid to remember what it is that we are doing, I shall have to remind you, Again! We are headed to the Ministry to ensure you a suitable job after you graduate, that is as long as you don't manage to muddle things up. And I'm warning you, here and now, boy, that it would be in your best interest not to mess things up." Lucius looked down at his watch. "Well it looks like you have once again thrown us off schedule."

Lucius turned on his heal and strode out of the room. Draco started to follow him but stopped and took one last look back at the constant stormy sea. The relentless sea.

And I want a moment to be real,
Wanna touch things I don't feel,
Wanna hold on and feel I belong.
And how can the world want me to change,
They're the ones that stay the same.
The don't know me,
'Cause I'm not here...

Draco went down to the entryway to wait for his father. He turned when he heard soft footsteps heading towards him from the parlor. He saw his mother, Narcissa, standing in the doorway, looking perfect like a picture. Just like every Malfoy wife, never less then perfect.

Narcissa walked into the hall and stopped directly in front of her son. She reached up and tucked a loose piece of hair behind his ear and then proceeded to straighten out his robes.

"Mother!" Draco said exasperated, and yet appreciative that someone in his family paid close enough attention to him, to notice the little things.

"My son, all grown up." Narcissa said, laughter reached both of their eyes. Laughter which faded with the severity of the up coming situation, until all that remained was an uncomfortable silence.

"Your Father really is trying to perfect your future. He cares for you, you know." Neither one of them really believed what she said, and knew that she was lying through her teeth.

It wasn't that he really cared for Draco, or for his future for that matter. It was because Lucius couldn't bear the thought of seeming less then perfect: The perfect wizard with the perfect– and perfectly obedient son.

Narcissa sighed, she knew how stubborn both her son and her husband could be. It seemed as though it was always a constant battle between the two of them.

"Just try and listen to your father, for once." Narcissa said, lightly squeezing his shoulder. She headed back towards the parlor but paused at the doorway.

"Draco, I just don't want to see you throw away your entire future." She said softly over her shoulder just before she left. Out of all the Malfoy wives, she was one of the few that truly cared for her son.

"Yeah,. . . . What future. . . ." He said under his breath, looking out the window at the growing fog, over the sea, just as his father walked into the room.

oooo

"Well, are you coming?" Lucius said in a biting tone as he passed Draco, heading out the door. Draco restrained himself from rolling his eyes as he followed his father out of the manor.

Once they reached the front lawn Lucius took out of his pocket, a simple but elegant, silver pen. He offered Draco one side of the pen to hold, which Draco grudeuliy accepted.

With a sudden tug somewhere behind his navel Draco felt himself spiraling out control, in a whirlwind of color and sound. Until suddenly it stopped and he felt his feet slam into the ground. He opened his eyes and saw a familiar statue that he had seen repeatedly throughout his life that it had been burned into his memory. The Fountain of Magic Brethren.

Lucius however wasted no time in viewing his surroundings, and strode to a wooden desk, that was just to the left of the large golden gates, over which hung a sign that said SECURITY.

"Wand," requested the tired looking old wizard. He had tuffs of graying hair that stuck out at odd angles under his pointed hat.

Both Lucius and Draco laid their wands on the metal scales, which began to tick. Once a slinle peice of parchment was produced the old wizard handed it to Lucius and said. " You will need to show this to the security guard." Lucius only replied with a nod, and they were on their way and through the golden gates.

After traveling though a labyrinth of hallways and hidden doors, they finally came to a secluded section of the building. Draco concluded that this was one of the security hallways for significant executives, due to the lack of pictures and difficulty to find. He noticed a person standing near the far end of the hall, one that his father noticed as well.

"Wait here" Lucius said forcefully, as he strode off, most likely to talk to some important official. Draco watched his father walk down the hall to what looked to be a security guard. From where Draco was standing there seemed to be some kind of in depth conversation between them. Draco noticed that when his father was getting frustrated he began to talk with his hands, something his father hadn't yet realized he did. Draco knew that if his father realized what he was doing, he would have stopped immediately, all part of his 'self-control' issues.

After a few short moments of their 'discussion' the security guard reluctantly opened the door he'd been standing outside of andfollowed Lucius inside.

Draco waited impatiently in the eerie empty hallway for several minutes. All he could hear was his own breath which seemed like thunder in the silent hall. Draco suddenly spotted an old looking door at the far end of the hall. A door that he hadn't noticed earlier, as if it suddenly appeared. Draco wanted to open the door, but the words of his father continued to run though his mind. The door however seemed to be calling him. This calling and his curiosity got the better of him and he walked over to the door. As he approached the door, he noticed that it seemed to be old and worn, with what looked to be large claw marks, from some great animal.

Draco grasped the beaten metal handle and opened the door, as the calling suddenly seemed to vanish. As he looked into the giant room, he discovered that this room happened to be one of the courts. Which was odd that one of the counts was located on this floor, a security floor. The room's high dark stone walls were dimly light by an arrangement of torches. In the center of the circular room was a lone chair, assorted with large metal chains. The chains looked ready to grasp and suffocate their prey. Strewn around the sides of the room, creating a semi circle, were lofty, empty chairs--

"High up so they can look down upon their victims," Draco thought bitterly. He suddenly felt a steel hand grip his upper arm.

"Draco!" His father whispered harshly behind him. Draco whirled around and saw his father glaring at him like an enraged bull. "I thought I told you to stay there" he hissed. Draco didn't even have time to explain himself before the Minister of Magic showed up. Explain that it wasn't his fault.

"Ahhh, Lucius, I was told I could find you here." Stated Cornelius Fudge, the Minster of Magic.

"Yes, Minister, perhaps we should move this conversation to a more- comfortable- setting." Lucius offered, extending his hand in a friendly gesture. After a quick glance at Draco, which didn't go unnoticed by either of them.

"Ahh right, of course, and this must be your son, Draco, I presume?" Fudge inquired upon spotting Draco, causally leaning against the door.

"Yes, this is my son, Draco." Lucius said giving Draco a reprimanding glace with his eyes, berating him for slouching in front of a very influential person. This however, Fudge took no notice of, seeing as he was looking Draco up and down, judging him.

"You must be very proud of him, He looks like a strapping young man."

"Well, we raised him right." Lucius stated with a superior smirk on his face. Fudge then turned to Draco and said.

"You know, you look just like your father."Fudge said happily, as if it were a compliment, just as he walked passed Draco.

They can't tell me who to be,
'Cause I'm not what they see.

"Thank you, Minister." Lucius spoke for Draco, as he joined Fudge. Draco turned around and glared at the mens' backs.

'That's all I've ever been,' Draco thought. 'A mirror image of him. I've never been anything more than an object; a trophy, something to show off to the other Wizards, other Death Eaters, proof that his bloodline breeds true.'

This can't possibly be reality.

They can't see me,
But I'm still here. . .

A SPECIAL thanks to everyone who left me a comment they ALWAYS help:o)

now a special little quote by Lucius from the next chapter: A House of Dead Weight !

"Conversing with Mudbloods, shopping in used book stores, Malfoys are better then that." Long, long ago Draco had learned never to expect love or even kindness from his father. They had a mutual understanding of where the lines where drawn, but that was the extent of their love. After all it was just custom, it was just the way things were, and custom was custom, not to be questioned.