And We Give Ourselves Up

Pain was all Draco was aware of. The sharp, sudden bite of pain that shot up his left arm, causing him to gasp and clutch at his wrist. He looked down at the Dark Mark Voldemort himself had imprinted into his flesh. It was still there, still black and horrible. It would always be there.

The cold silence of death erupted into a loud cheer, a victorious cry of delight and pure, undiluted ecstasy, and then Potter was submerged in a sea of friends and allies, clapping him on the back, reaching out to touch him, hugging each other, crying, screaming, laughing, the emotions too overwhelming for intelligible words. Draco watched them for a minute, stock-still, unable to process what had just happened. The most shocking thing wasn't even the Dark Lord's death. It was what he, Draco, had done. Not just saved Potter's life, but risked his own to save another's. It was something so completely un-Slytherin, so ridiculously reckless, that Draco didn't understand it. He didn't know what had driven him to the act. One minute he had been watching on dispassionately, knowing and acknowledging that Potter was about to die, and then Potter had looked at him, almost beseechingly, and he had – he had practically thrown himself between Potter and the Dark Lord. Stunned, he looked down at his hands, the hands that had thrown Goyle's wand. What had he been thinking?

A hand wrapped itself around his forearm gently, and he looked up into his mother's wide, worried eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I shouldn't have let you go – oh, Draco, I thought we'd lost you. And when you –"

"Narcissa." His father's tone was urgent. "Please..."

"I know," Narcissa said, blowing out a small sigh. "Come, Draco. We have no reason to stay here anymore."

He looked at her, then at his father beside her. Both looked battle-worn and frightened, but he detected something else there, something like relief, and the same shell-shocked expression he knew he probably had. With the Dark Lord's death, it was as though a part of their life had died with him, the part that was filled with terror and blood and violence. That page was turned, and behind it lay an equally terrifying page of reprisals, prison, judgment and punishment.

"Let's go home, Draco," his father said, and his tone was so tired it frightened Draco. All the fight had gone out of him.

"But –" he began, then stopped.

Going home wouldn't do anything, he wanted to say. If anyone wanted to go after them, they would find them. But his parents already knew that, and it seemed pointless to say the words out loud. Instead, he slid his hand into his mother's.

It was easy to slip out of the Great Hall, then out onto the grounds. No one paid attention to the family trying to discreetly flee from the Castle, because they were all simultaneously too giddy from the victory and too beaten down by the deaths to notice. Around them, other families reunited, hugging each other and crying tears of both relief and sadness, and friends sought out friends and others frantically looked for their loved ones. The grief Draco witnessed made him feel strange, almost guilty somehow that he still had his family. Then a thought struck him, and he looked up at his mother. Tears welled up in her eyes and snaked, unchecked, down her cheeks; Narcissa had lost a sister in the Battle, and she wasn't even going to see her body.

They broke into a run as soon as they were outside the Castle, desperate to leave the grounds. Draco could remember a time when Hogwarts had been like a home to him, a place he liked and looked forward to going back to. Now he was running from it as though it were the most nightmarish place he could imagine, and in a way, it was. He still felt numb from the unexpected pain of losing Crabbe, from having narrowly evaded death three times in the last few hours, from the shock of seeing the Dark Lord die, from his own actions, but beneath that lay a cold, intense disgust for everything he had seen – the blood, the fear, the despair, the deaths.

It was Lucius who Apparated them, and they reappeared in the entrance hall of their home. Draco staggered forward, unbalanced, and caught himself against the wall. Images of the night's events flashed before his eyes.

"Draco..." His father's voice was quiet and uncertain. "How are you feeling?"

"I'll be all right," he said, more to reassure his parents than anything else.

His mother threw him a worried glance. "Are you sure –"

"I'm fine."

Narcissa nodded. She began pacing across the hall with her wand out, muttering under her breath, reworking the wards around Malfoy Manor. Nearly all the Death Eaters had had access to their home, but now that everything was over, they didn't want a surprise visit from one of them. Draco watched, his mind working slowly, still trying to digest what had happened.

"Do you think he's really –" he began, then stopped.

"I don't know, Draco," his father replied. "I don't know."

Draco cut his eyes to him. There was none of the usual trembling fear in his father's tone when he mentioned the Dark Lord, only honest uncertainty.

"You felt it, too. The Mark. But I don't know what it means. He's been dead before."

A shiver ran up Draco's spine at the thought.

"What if they come after us?" he asked next. "Mother and I don't have a wand, and yours..."

His father twirled a wand between his fingers, a wand he had had made by Ollivander, who had been locked in their cellar. His original wand had been destroyed while in the Dark Lord's possession, and the new one didn't work half as well for him. If Ollivander hadn't been too proud to make a wand that was of less than the best quality, Draco would have believed he had intentionally given Lucius a weak one.

"Even if you had your wands," his father said, "and I mine, we wouldn't fight. There's no reason to fight anymore, if the Dark Lord is gone. If they come after us, then we... we give ourselves up."

Draco sucked in a breath. "But we –"

"I'm sorry, Draco."

Draco blinked. His father rarely apologised, and when he did, it was not in that strained voice.

"I never thought..." Lucius shook his head. "It doesn't matter. It's over, son. It's over."

They waited in the sitting room, huddled together in a desperate embrace. His parents' arms were wrapped around him tightly. Draco didn't think they had ever acted more like a family than they did at that moment as they awaited their sentence. His heart was pounding so loudly he could hear it, rapid and terrified, and he didn't say a word. No one did. There were so many things he could have said, should have said – that he was so glad his parents were both still alive, that he loved them more than he'd realised, that he was sorry for all the things he had never apologised for, all those pointless, insignificant things like brushing off his mother's owls at Hogwarts –, but the words stuck in his throat and he said nothing.

At last – had it been minutes, hours, days? – the sentence came. The iron grate in front of the fireplace alerted them; it was linked to the front gate. A face appeared in the dull metal and it spoke.

"There are visitors at the gate."

Narcissa let out a very soft sigh and broke away from her son, rising to her feet. "How many?"

"Five wizards, sent by the Ministry."

"Ask for their names," Lucius ordered, but his wife waved a hand to silence him.

"Let them in," she said, sounding resigned.

The next minute and a half was excruciatingly long. They stood and waited in silence for the men to make their way through the grounds, up the front steps, inside the entrance hall, and down the corridor to the sitting room. Finally the footsteps stopped just outside the door, and Draco's heart skipped a beat. The handle turned down slowly, and then the door was knocked open roughly and the five men stormed it, wands out and pointed at the Malfoys.

"Expelliarmus!"

Only one wand flew across the room into the hands of the Ministry official, who frowned.

"Incarce –"

"There's no need for that," Lucius said coolly, interrupting him mid-spell. "We let you come in. We're unarmed. We're not going to oppose any resistance."

One of the men sneered at him. "I'd like to see you try."

He stepped forward, wand out, and spun Lucius around, deliberately delivering a sharp knock between his shoulder blades before gleefully snapping a pair of silver magicuffs around his wrists behind his back.

"Not so proud now, are you, Malfoy?"

Lucius' cheek was pressed into the hard stone wall, his lips pressed together tightly in anger – but he said nothing. That was when Draco realised just how much everything had changed. Was going to change.

The other men were closing in on Draco and his mother. Draco thought he vaguely recognised one or two of them as having come to the Manor to talk amicably about Ministry business with Lucius. From the stricken look on his mother's face, he was right. Narcissa spread her hands out in front of her to show she was unarmed, and one of the wizards moved forward and took hold of her.

"Turn around," he said, his expression almost apologetic.

She did, and put her arms behind her back without him having to ask her to. She held her head high and proud to preserve some dignity, but Draco could see her hands were trembling. The two remaining men tried to approach him, their expressions so unpleasant he instinctively backed away. He caught his mother's pleading gaze and stopped, closed his eyes, and raised his hands in surrender.

One of the men caught him by the collar of his robes, turned him around, and slammed him roughly into the wall. Draco let out a hiss of pain, but didn't stop the other man from fixing the cuffs on to his wrists. They were too tight and bit into his flesh painfully.

"Where's your wand?" the man asked.

"Don't have one anymore," he said bitterly.

Potter had taken his real wand, and apparently lost it. His mother's had been destroyed by Fiendfyre. And the one he had been using – Goyle's – was now in Potter's hands.

The men shot him an incredulous look, which for some reason he found infuriating. But he was used to people not trusting him. Another quick check with Expelliarmus told them he was telling the truth, and they scowled as though disappointed that he hadn't lied. What kind of wizard doesn't have a wand?

"Doesn't matter," said the first man, the one who had Disarmed Lucius. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?" Narcissa asked as they were led out of the room.

"We're going to drop you off at the Ministry. Then you'll be carted off to Azkaban."

Narcissa lost all her composure then. The blood drained from her face and she let out a small cry of anguish, her mouth dropping open into a perfect 'O'. Her husband stumbled on the steps outside and nearly fell. Draco felt a shroud of darkness fall over him as he remembered the icy feeling the presence of Dementors on the train in his third year had imparted. Azkaban? The numb feeling was back, clouding the horror he tried to keep at bay. He'd seen what Azkaban could do to people. He'd seen what it had done to his aunt, taking her fervent loyalty and twisting it into sick madness. Dementors fed on your happy memories, forcing you to relive your worst memories... what were his worst memories? He had managed to amass a decent amount of unpleasant memories over the years, especially these past two years. Blood, death, torture; fear, pain, horror. It was hard to pick out the bad from the worst.

The men left them at the Ministry, as they had said they would, but not before talking a great deal with other employees that had been waiting for them. Draco learnt they weren't Aurors or any sort of apprehension agents, just Ministry employees who probably worked desk jobs most of the time. The Ministry was being drastically reorganised – or maybe that was disorganised. Kingsley Shacklebolt had been put in charge and was struggling to make sense of the situation. There had already been a massive release of innocents from Azkaban. Most Aurors and Hit Wizards were either at Hogwarts or chasing after fugitives. Shacklebolt was a fast worker; the Battle had only been over for a couple hours.

Draco listened to the banter between the Ministry employees, who seemed delighted by the situation and not at all concerned with the family that was awaiting their sentence. His shoulders hurt from his arms being held behind his back by the cuffs for too long, and the bindings were so tight around his wrists he could barely feel his fingers anymore.

At last the five employees who had apprehended them stopped talking and laughing and left. It was someone else who took over, a tall, broad-shouldered man with glittering black eyes.

"Owen Jane," he introduced himself. "Governor of the wizarding prison of Azkaban, where you'll be held until your trial."

Draco felt himself blanch. The soreness in his shoulders intensified and a flash of sharp-edged fear tore through him. Azkaban. Realisation struck, and this time, the comforting numbness didn't come. He almost wished for it, because it would have taken the pain away. It would have taken the fear away.

Death was better than Azkaban.

"Do you know why you have been arrested?" the governor said.

Lucius nodded curtly. None of them said a word.

"Then we go."

Azkaban was more than intimidating. It was terrifying. The prison loomed before them, dark and ominous. Draco had never seen it before, or maybe he had, in a photograph in a newspaper. He wasn't sure anymore. The building was narrow, or maybe it only looked that way because of its height. It looked impossibly tall to Draco, who had to tilt his head way back to look, and even then he didn't think he had glimpsed the top of it, which disappeared above the clouds. The air around it was thick and heavy, making it difficult to breathe, difficult for Draco's chest to rise and fall. He thought he caught a glimpse of a Dementor swooping down from the sky to the roof of the prison, followed by a scream, and he stopped in his tracks, only to be prodded in the back by Owen Jane. Hadn't they deserted and joined the Dark Lord? Why were they here? Draco looked back at the governor and was impressed to see the man looked utterly cool and collected, as though the Dementors – they had to be the reason the atmosphere felt this strange – had no effect on him.

The governor led them inside the prison. Draco saw his mother turn her head at the last second for one last glimpse of the sky, the ugly, darkened sky, and then there was darkness, lit only by a few, rare torches. They were still shackled, and Draco's shoulders really ached by now, but it was nothing compared to the pressure on his chest that was increasing by the minute. It was even worse now that they were inside, and he felt as though he might suffocate. The air was just unbreathable.

Even though his breathing was hindered and the prison was poorly lit, he felt very alert. The numbness had definitely left him, and every visual detail sprang out at him sharply. The stones on the floor, the strong, cold iron of the barred doors to the cells, and the faces, all the faces. The faces of the wizards and witches already imprisoned, and who had been for weeks, or months, or years, long enough to forget how long it had been exactly. Their faces were drawn and gaunt, their eyes either dull or wide with madness, and only very few of them looked up when the Malfoys walked in front of their cells. Draco met one man's gaze and instantly wished he hadn't. Fear. Hatred. Infinite guilt. It was a glimpse of what he was about to live.

Thankfully, it was a very short walk until the governor stopped in front of a cell. The wooden sign above the door read, Cell 216. It was small and empty. The door was open.

Owen Jane nodded. "In."

Draco stepped in first, followed by his parents, and then the governor, who unlocked their cuffs. Draco felt a wave of physical relief and shrugged his shoulders, trying to ease the ache away, but it didn't last long. The governor left and closed the door behind him, and as soon as the door was locked, something pushed Draco down to his knees. It was as though his breath had been knocked out. The pressure around his heart tripled and a scream filled his ears, the scream of someone he had seen die. Draco realised that he hadn't even begun to feel the extent of the Dementors' influence here. The governor had kept them at bay, but now that he was gone, they were the Dementors' prey.

Narcissa broke first, maybe because she had more happy memories than Lucius and the Dementors had sensed that and decided to target her first. She curled up into a ball in a corner of the cell and began shaking uncontrollably, tears running down her cheeks, an expression of absolute terror on her face. Lucius tore himself away from his own memories to try to talk to her, but nothing he said would get through to her. She just shook her head and screwed her eyes shut, clamping her hands over her ears as though to block out all sound.

"No, no, no..." she sobbed.

Draco watched. He wanted to reach out to her, but she was beyond reaching out to. As soon as the Dementors fully turned on him, he would be, too. Already he could feel the horrific atmosphere of the place, a place swarmed with the soul-suckers, weighing on his shoulders and heart. It was only a matter of minutes before he would curl up in a corner, to, his eyes closed in an attempt to avoid his worst memories. At the moment, only one thought ran through his mind, again and again. A thought that scared him almost as much as the Dementors did. Would his mother become like Aunt Bellatrix?

Draco closed his eyes and wondered how he was going to stay sane.