A/N: hi there! Lostsoul512 speaking here. I'm the co-author of this lovely little story. Anyway, to avoid confusion, I just wanted you all to know that this is in fact another Draco chapter. If you don't like it, then don't read it. You'll be missing out.

Vicious Cycles Make You Laugh
(falling fast, hitting harder)

I was very hollow indeed as we ascended the steps. Haunting memories plagued me, memories of times and things that I could never get back.

Pansy's hand in my own was a constant reassurance. What twist of fate had brought her back to me now, this single creature of which I was capable of loving? And more importantly, what twists of fate would rip her from me?

I didn't bother to knock - who knocked at their own house? - grateful the door was unlocked. I led Pansy into the great marble foyer. She had been silent since our arrival, lost within whatever hell unfolded in her mind. She had been so scarred, so damaged by the war. Much like me, she had lost everything. We had all very much counted on the rise of the Dark Lord. His failure- our failure- had led us into recluse and cessation. Now we were left to wander aimlessly in the shadow of the past. It was our fate, I supposed.

I looked around the house in a quiet contemplation of sorts. Standing here now, so many years later, I saw that I was not very different at all. In the tangles of my mind I found that I had always imagined in it ruins, just like everything else in my world. But here I saw that it was the same indulgent image that my life had been founded on, so much grandeur and pretending.

In that solitary moment, I found that everything from my former life, the life of bloodlines, greed, and a lust for something so unattainable, came rushing back into me. It transfused with the unshakeable darkness moving through me, creating something much, much worse. Everything I had ever loved or wanted or hated was swarming my mind, tempting me. And I thought, I still wanted them. I still wanted them very, very much.

"Who's there?"

A sharp voice from just beyond the archway from the foyer brought me back to reality. I tightened my grip of Pansy's hand, moving my free one to my left pocket, where my wand rested. Even the slightest brush against it caused a surge of power to come over me.

The figured entered then, and all at once I felt my defenses drop, replaced by more emotions than I could decipher. For they stood Bellatrix LeStrange, my aunt.

A gasp broke from her plush lips, her acid-like eyes going wide in shock. "Draco? That you?"

I managed to keep my own face perfectly expressionless. "Yes," I replied shortly. "Who would you expect it to be? I very much doubt you get frequent visitors."

Flames danced wildly in my aunt's feral eyes, flickering with a mixture of fury and loathing and… something else.

Praise.

When she spoke again, her tone was still biting. She came towards us in leisurely steps, ever the predator stalking her prey. Now that was us.

"So the prodigal son returns," she said slowly. "After he so loyally abandoned us. After he left us to die."

I didn't leave, I thought. I wouldn't have left. I would have fought to the death for the Dark Lord. But it seemed my vocals were no longer working.

"Yes," she continued, a malicious grin spreading over her lips. "You left us."

"Shut up," I finally spat. "Just shut up. You don't know what you're talking about."

Bellatrix was so close now I could see the individual emerald flecks in her hate-filled eyes. What had driven this shattered soul so far over the edge, forced her into the depths of insanity [though of course insanity was all relative and therefore did not exist]? I doubted I would ever know. But I thought that the history of Bellatrix LeStrange would be written in the blood of the innocent.

"You're a coward, Draco. A pathetic excuse of a Death Eater. You were never destined for our world."

In a single shriek I had unleashed all the emotions I'd been holding in. Then the hand that wasn't still gripping – crushing - Pansy's whipped out my wand until it was pointed right at my aunt's heart.

I thought that at that moment I sort of slipped out of myself, and I watched the scene around me as though I was not a part of it. There was the blackened soul who was doomed to spend forever longing for the days when she had held sway over others. She would lead a façade for the rest of her miserable life. She would never forget because she would not allow herself. Then there was a second woman, who in many ways was still very much a girl. She was silent, her pleading eyes locked on the boy, the boy who also would never forget, but thought that maybe this girl could help him heal.

A maniacal laugh from Bellatrix snapped me back into my own body.

"How precious," she sneered. "Are you threatening me, Draco?"

I scowled at her. "It's not so much a threat as it is a promise."

I felt a slight tug on my arm; a quick glance from out of the corner of my eye revealed Pansy, staring up at me with tear-rimmed eyes. I'd almost forgotten her presence. Every inch of her was pleading, begging me to lower my wand. You don't want to do this, those eyes said.

How very wrong she was.

"You really are pathetic," Bellatrix derided. "Just like your father."

Those four words were all it took. I had been balanced precariously on the edge for some time now, and those four words were all it took to push me over. Without thinking, I opened my mouth.

It took her four words to destroy me.

It only took me two.