Draco dragged his feet through the empty halls of Hogwarts towards the stairs leading up to the Astronomy tower. It was 11:00 at night, he should be in bed, or at least in his common room. "What's the point of sleeping?" he murmured to himself. If he slept no doubt painful memories of her would overtake him and cast him into such agony that he wouldn't be able to function. He hadn't even been able to insult Potter and Weazelbee without the torture of that letter coming back to him. He could still picture the envelope, white and starchy being dropped into his lap. At the time he had thought nothing of it. Fan mail, no doubt. But it wasn't until he opened it that his life changed forever.

Dear Mr. Draco Malfoy,

We, the Ministry of Magic, regret to inform you that your mother, Narcissa Malfoy is no longer alive. At precisely 8:33 PM Thursday night she was hit with a powerful Cruciatus Curse and died instantly. We believe that because of the destructiveness of this particular curse she had little time to experience pain before she died. You will remain in the care of your father, one Lucius Malfoy, until you turn of age. Once again, we are sorry for your loss.

At first, Draco had not known how to react. He had thought that surely this was some kind of cruel hoax, but the letter had been sealed with the official ministry stamp and sent with a flawless barn owl, the messenger birds for the ministry.

Coming back to reality, Draco realized that he had ascended the long spiral staircase leading up to the tower and was now silhouetted against the sky. He stared up at the millions of constellations and once again drifted off into his own thought. The letter had not been very specific about the cause of death. Yes, the Cruciatus curse had been administered, but who had cast it? Draco scoffed at himself. Of course he knew who cast it. His father, Lucius Malfoy was the only person who could have done it. His father had been very protective of his mother. Not in a caring way, in a mistrusting way. One of the worst memories of Draco's childhood was walking in on his father about to curse his mother and yelling about safety and the Dark Lord. They had tried to act normal when they saw Draco's scared, pale face hiding in the corner, but Draco had no doubt that the moment that he had run out to cry behind the guest house they had not come to look for him and instead Lucius had carried out his intentions. Yes, his father had killed his mother on Thursday night. Draco knew that nobody would believe him, but the minute he stepped back into Malfoy Manor during Winter Vacation his father would let him know about it in an attempt to intimidate.

Draco sighed loudly and stared down towards the Hogwarts grounds. From here he could see Hagrid's hut and the Forbidden Forest. He had been terrified of the forest since first year when he had been forced to enter it with Granger, Potter, and Weasley. He had no doubt that the cloaked creature had been the Dark Lord feeding on unicorn blood. Even now he looked back on his eleven year old self in disgust for running away instead of heroically facing it like Potter did.

Wait. What?

What had he just said? Had he just called Potter heroic? Lord, his mother's death had really had a huge impact on him if he was even giving a bit of respect to his worst enemy. Like it or not, though, Draco had been at the Gryffindor quidditch practice hoping that he could talk to Potter about having a dead mother. He knew that Potter would most likely not talk to him or just make fun of him, but he was the only person Draco knew who had gone through life with no mum. It was an idiotic move by himself. Draco hadn't even been able to bring himself to talk about it without fist insulting the boy. He was sure that Potter had seen him tear up when the bloke had insulted his mother.

Oh well, I should probably just go back to the dungeons before that imbecile Filch finds me and makes me do work around the castle like a peasant.

As he made his way down towards the basement, he passed a portrait of a particularly plump woman. This isn't what caught his attention though. He could see a light behind the sleeping portrait and hear voices. On closer inspection he saw that the picture was slightly open. This must be the Gryffindor common room! Thought Draco excitedly. Typical of the Gryffindors to have a fat lady as their portrait, it represents their personalities perfectly. Draco peaked inside and saw Granger talking in low tones with Potter. He couldn't hear much but managed to hear a few phrases like "Malfoy showed up "responded with some comment", and last of all "running out of the building". Was it possible that they were talking about his actions at the quidditch practice? If this assumption was correct, then for the next fifteen minutes Granger was thinking hard about something. He wondered if she could be deducing the death of his mother. Surely not. Not even Granger is that smart. Still, Hermione continued her brainstorming session until she gave a rather soft, pleasant yawn and headed up to what Draco inferred to be the girl's dormitories.

Hold up. Had he just classified something that Granger did as "pleasant"? He was surely cracking up. How could he possibly even think that? It wasn't until Draco was seated in front of the fire in his respective common room that he realized that in all the time he had been watching her, he had not felt one feeling of contempt towards the bushy-haired girl...