'You've been the only thing that's right in all I've done,' - Run, Snow Patrol.

Chapter 29

"No!" Draco shrieked. He was shaking. How he wasn't crying, the others did not know, but they were all shocked by his strength and alarmed by his answer. He had never refused to go to his father before. Lucius' opened arms were not run into.

"Prince..." Lucius whispered as he reached for him. All he wanted to do was what he had wanted to do for so longer. Understand.

The boy meanwhile only held on to his uncle firmer. He wasn't going to let Snape let go of him. He was going to be for it, he was sure if he went to his father.

"I'm sorry." He wept as the expected break down came. Over and over again all he could say to the four adults was how sorry he was, when they all knew he had done nothing wrong. Nothing to deserve this! Gently, but with unnaturally shaking hands, Severus took the boys jacket off and then unbuttoned his shirt so he could get a clearer idea of how hurt he was. Eight clearly defined finger nail markets sat on his shoulders, four on each, little spots of blood surrounding all of them. Eliza gasped in horror as a tear slide down Jane's cheek.

Lucius raised his hand to his mouth. All he knew was he wanted to kill who ever had done this.

"Shh baby it isn't your fault, don't say sorry!" he said to him. "Don't be sorry son," Lucius begged him. "No one blames you."

Lucius words seemed to hit home and for the first time since they had got to the lobby, the little boy allowed his father to touch him. Ever so gently, Lucius run his fingers across the nail marks. "My poor baby." He whispered more to himself than any one else. "Who's done this to you?". He had been hurt. And Lucius, who was meant to be there, there for him more than anyone else had let this happen. He was pulled back to reality by his boy's voice.

"Daddy, don't send me away. I don't want to go away!" he said to him as he allowed his grip on his uncle to loosen.

"Hey, you are going nowhere." Said Lucius as he touched his son's cheek gently and wipe away his tears. "You are staying where you belong, at home with me. I need you here with me."

"Just you? Daddy, I want it to be just us again."

"Ok, ok," Lucius nodded. At that moment Draco's word was his father's command. There was nothing Lucius wouldn't do for him, and if Draco told him to jump, Lucius would not have hesitated to ask how high. "Just us." He nodded.

Tentatively, Draco took his shaking arms away from his uncle and reached out for his father. Lucius didn't think he had ever seemed this defenceless, even when he had been a newborn. He just seemed like a frightened little animal who didn't know where to turn.

Eliza and Jane were both gripped with emotion as they watched Lucius pull his son into him and the two Malfoys embrace.

A terrified but relieved sob echoed about them as Draco cried out. All he had ever wanted for months was for him and his father to be together like this. And he felt that he was his again. Lucius was his daddy and nothing else. He was back with him. After months of invisible separation they were back together.

Lucius ran his fingers through his son's hair and noted that he even smelt the same. Nothing about Draco was different. It was his boy. He had obviously just been petrified to such an extent he appeared to change. But it was his boy in his arms now.

"Daddy?"

"Yes baby?"

"I did a bad t-t-thing." Said Draco. It was time. Now or never.

Sitting down by Severus on the sofa, Lucius held on to Draco with one hand and continued running his hand soothing through his hair with the other. Looking deep into his eyes, he nodded.

"It's all right, darling boy, tell daddy what you did because I am making up a new rule for this household today. You can tell me anything in the world you did bad or wrong, and daddy can't punish you. So you just tell me what you've done. And it'll be fine. No repercussions." He said cradling his baby.

"Promise?"

"Yes, I promise Dragon, daddy promises." He said struggling to hold back his own tears.

"I pinched-d-d Maria-a, and I lied to you. The bruise on-n-n my arm was where she pinched me back. And I didn't-t-t mean to spoil the party-y-y or be mean to-o-o Maria, but daddy she makes me sad! She yells at me and tells me I do bad things when-n-n I d-d-don't know I even did them. Daddy I don't mean to bother-r-r you or act like a little girl. I didn't mean to kill mamma-a-a." Draco was sobbing uncontrollably. All the pain of the last months came tumbling out as he informed his father of what he felt were his short comings. "Daddy you hav-e-e to believe me," he said as he pull up his sleeves to show his father the identical bruise marks and the many others that had appeared on his arms. "She hurts me-e-e! Please don't marry her-r-r-r. I don't want a mother, I just want you!"

Draco found himself wrapped in the tightest and warmest embrace his father had ever given him. He enveloped in his father's arms. Jane could not help it think Lucius seemed like a lion or a lioness even in that moment. If anyone had so much as reached out to gently comfort Draco, they would have felt his anger. It was as if he trusted no one else in that moment and there was a fire, a madness in his grey eyes. Lucius kissed his son over and over again. "I am not going to marry her son, I promise you. I believe you baby." He said and as the boy put his head on his father's shoulder, Lucius had to turn away while two tears dripped down his own face. He could not bear to see Draco in such pain. And all the while this had been going on under his own roof, under his nose! He should have, could have stop it had he looked for it.

As he rocked his son gently, he let the wheels in his mind turn. He had to act – and fast.

"Severus, tell the guests to go home. There's nothing to see here. As for her, take her to the dungeon. Give her nothing," he whispered, covering his sons ears, not that Draco could hear any way he was crying so badly. "No water, no bread, no answers, no nothing!" he said as his anger rose. "She gets nothing." He wanted to rip her into pieces and he knew he would, but for that moment not even if he wanted to was he able to leave Draco in the state he was in. Maria would keep, he decided. What he had to do now was something he had not done in months.

Be a father once more.

Once he had despatched Severus who he knew was just as upset, angry and disturbed by what had happened as he was, he stood up.

"Ladies, come with me please." The four of them went up to Draco's room, all the way with Lucius making nonsense noises as he tried to comfort Draco. Once they were there, the distressed little one seemed to have calmed down and was beginning to believe his father was there and that he believed him.

His mother had been right. All would indeed be well.

His father undressed him and examined his son's frail body. The boy was thinner than he had been, noticeably so. He had welts and bruises all over him. Why had he shut eyes? He had looked away because it had been easy to do, for him. But it had not been the right thing to do. And his baby was paying the price. A realisation hit him. Maria hadn't caused the sores on his son's body. He had. Every pain his son had been caused might as well have come from him. Every pinch from his nails, every punch from his fists.

"I am so sorry," he whispered as he helped Draco put on his bath robe. He had to be cleaned up, and cream and ointments had to be applied to help heal the sores. But Lucius could feel his anger boiling over and he refused to boil over in front of his son. The last thing he needed was to see him in a state. He would only frighten his son further. "Draco, Nana and Jane are going to bathe you ok? And then when you're done, you can play for a while. And then daddy is going to come back."

"You won't choose her will you? You will come back?"

"Of course, Always." he said as his son collapsed into him once more. "I will always come back to you my little prince. She is nothing to me."

"I don't want you to go!"

"I know you don't, but I swear this is the last time, little prince. Then it is back to how it always should have been," he said as he held on to his son. "Just you and me."

"Promise?"

"I promise you."

Kissing Draco for a last time, Lucius headed for the door.

"Daddy?" he heard his son call after him, just as he was about to leave.

"Yes dragon?"

"I love you." Lucius wished he had said anything else but that. His guilt tripled.

"I love you too." He nodded and left the room.

-

Severus met Lucius in the office. Having set up a pensive, he extracted the memories he had of what he had seen in Draco's mind. He knew his friend was going to want to see it.

Spilling half the bottle, Lucius poured out two much needed fire whiskeys.

"Show me," he demanded once Severus had emptied the memories into the pensive. Practically diving into them he prepared himself for what was sure to be the most horrifying experience of his life. All he could do was watched as Maria teased and harmed his son. His six year old son! Draco wept, tried to rebel but in the end he couldn't fight her. After everything she did he went limp and Lucius did not blame him. He saw what had happened on that first walk; he understood when and why he had changed. Everything made sense. But what really horrified him was her trying to take his blanket from him.

That was what hurt Lucius the most.

How dare she? How bloody well dare she?

What he had done in the war was going to be nothing compared to what he did to her now.

Severus had always known Lucius to be an absolutely formidable enemy and he knew that he certainly would not like to be on the wrong side of him. He would avoid crossing him at all costs. But he didn't think he had ever seen him like this. He had always known him to be an over protective father when it came to his baby but he didn't think that his reaction would be so violent. Lucius looked ready to murder on the spot.

"You have to calm yourself before you go to her." he said to him.

"Why the hell should I?" Lucius said as he threw back his fire whiskey. He was ready to kill. Had Severus not seen what she had done to him? His poor son...

"Because if you go to her now then you will kill her straight off. And it isn't enough! It won't help you! She has to live through the next night, week, month if you can stretch it out that long. Brother, I only say this because if you kill her then she cannot feel. If she can't feel then she can't suffer, and she has to suffer! She has to pay for what she has done!" the cold black eyes met the grey ones. "Kill her by all means; nothing would give me greater pleasure to know that women no longer breathes. But not tonight. If she dies tonight, it's not enough. She has to go through what he did ten times over."

Suddenly Severus was making complete sense to his best friend. He was right, of course he was right. She had to pay. For every tear his son had shed, she would shed a thousand he vowed.

Throwing himself on his leather chair he tried to calm himself but he couldn't. He was shaking with anticipation of what was to come. The shrieks, the pleas, the begging for mercy. It was as if his Lord had never fallen.

He had to focus though. He had to keep his calm and remember why he was doing this. He had a reason to make her suffer. The best reason he had ever had to torture another being.

"Did you see his shoulder?" he asked quietly and the horror he felt at what had happened was audible. "She marked him." He whispered. His face was a picture of perfect confusion. He didn't understand how someone could be so cruel to someone so tiny, so fragile. He recalled the nights he had watch his son sleep just to know he had been breathing. His face had been a picture of such breakable innocent. And now she had shattered it, though he prayed not beyond repair.

"Yes, she did," Severus nodded. He didn't know how else to reply.

Enough, Lucius though as he replayed the image of his son of his son bringing that bitch his blanket. Enough pain and sorrow.

It was time for action.

Throwing the glass against the wall, he picked up his wand and stalked his way to the dungeon only stopping to call over his shoulder to a following Severus: "Gather the old faithful." It was high time that they all had a bit of fun he thought to himself. She was going to be easy pray.

He had not been into this part of the manor for so long. He had not had the need to and he realised because of that he had fallen into his role in life as a father and not much else. Maybe that was why he had let his guard down and she had got in. He hadn't felt like this for so long. The release was incredible.

Opening the door to the first cell, he found his bride to be. This was where Severus had told him he was going to find her and here she was. The one time adored whore he had once called sweetheart.

She looked utterly betrayed as he came into the rooms if she did not know why he had done this. She looked up at him with those stupid doe like eyes which had won him over so many times before. When they would have no effect on him. Not now, nor ever again.

"My darling," she begun but she was not given the opportunity to finish what she had said as she was whacked to the stone floor by his fist. He was a gentleman in public, but she was about learn that he could just as easily be a beast behind closed doors.

Still she was in her wedding gown. Her curly hair run down her back, and as she looked at him, a crystalline tear was shed from her eye. Nothing but a crocodile tear he thought to himself.

"Lucius, my dear lord, what have I done to offend you so? I don't understand," she said to him pleadingly.

"Well shall I help you? The marks all over my son's body... the tears he has shed... the loneliness he has felt...the distance between him and myself. Yes there's a start..." he practically hissed at her as the blood begun to trickle down her face from her nose.

"Draco said I did something to him?" she said in a surprised voice. God, how had he been so blind to her? How? He questioned himself.

"I saw everything you did to him in a pensive. Don't deny it, cause I swear to you the end will come much sooner if you don't!"

"The end?" she whispered, but she did not get a chance to ask any more than that as a boot came full blast into her month, cracking her jaw. Lucius longed for Rodolphus. How he would enjoy today.

"Perhaps I did not specify when you entered this house, but no one, absolutely no one hurts my son and lives to tell the tale." He whispered deadly low to her. she begun to weep as she held her face. She was beginning to get the message he thought to himself.

"You see, my dear, I would give you your wand which you so cleverly left in your room. Despite common opinion, I do love a fair fight, but you see, I know you don't. That was why you picked on my son, who was powerless to defend himself, much like you are now. I thought it might be more fun for all of us this way." He said as she tried and failed to block the foot that hurtled in to her stomach.

"Enough." He said as he pulled his wand out from his robes. "Time for some real fun, don't you think?" he could see the pure terror in her eyes. "Crucio."

He had never gained so much pleasure from torture before. He had always enjoyed it, but never like this. It was as if he was putting the world to rights, and as his so called fiancées face became contorted with the pain, his pleasure intensified. Every time it hurt her just that little bit more, It pleased him further.

No one hurt Draco, no one! His reason for doing this was so constant in his mind. He could see the terror in his sons eyes and that heightened the strength of the desire with which he wished harm her.

By the time that he had finished with her for the day, he felt utterly exhausted. It had taken it out of him, but as he looked at her crippled and sobbing he knew it had been worth it. And her day was not over yet.

"What's wrong, Maria? Did you not get your happily ever after?" he growled in her ear. "Is my son to happy? Am I too relieved? Well don't worry my sweet. We're not through yet. Not by a long way." He said, throwing one last kick in her direction before leaving her to her tears. He had to control himself because he knew he was needed elsewhere.

When he left the room, her saw that Crabbe, Goyle, Zabini and Snape had come, as had Nott. That was the thing about purebloods. While everyone knew of their hatred for others, they did not know of their loyalty to one another. They were brothers in arms and if one was in trouble the others would come to help. The five men sympathetic to Lucius. Four out of the five were fathers of small sons themselves. If it had been their child, they would want blood too.

"Have you told them?" Lucius barked at Snape.

"They know enough of what has happened here, yes." he nodded.

Lucius was shaking he was that overcome by what had happened throughout the course of the day. He had to calm himself. He had to get ready to go back to his baby.

"Gents, it's been a long time since any of us have had any real fun. I thought you might appreciate it." He said to them with a smirk. They nodded eagerly, understanding precisely what he what them to do.

"There's only two rules. One, she lives through the night. An two, you clean up the mess when your done." He said earning a few chuckles. "I trust at least one of you to give my virgin bride the wedding night she so richly deserves." He said as he begun to walk away. He had to get out of there. Turning back just for a moment though, he saw all five men head for the cell at once. Crabbe did not even wait to get in there before he begun to unbuckle his trousers.

Thoroughly satisfied that the job would be done right, he headed up to his room where he tore off his robes and got straight into his shower. He had to get her off of him, wash her away! He did not wish to linger there though. He soon learnt that when he was alone that gave him a chance to think of what had happened and he could not stand that. Hot tears poked at his shut eyes as they tried to escape when he thought of what had happened...

Night had fallen. Jumping out the shower, he dried himself, put on his pyjamas bottom and the vest he always wore to bed. Then, grabbing his robe, he pulled it about himself, left the room and crossed the landing to his son's room.

Opening the door quietly, he observed the picture. Eliza sat in the rocking chair looking as if she was either going to be sick or burst in to tears at any moment. Jane was more composed however and she sat on the floor with his son, trying and failing to interest Draco in his toy dragon. An unopened story book which had also failed to engross Draco lay on his bed.

The little one himself looked exhausted but was obviously fighting off sleeping. He leaned into the governess as she had her arm about him and his eyes were glazed over, but they still lit up as he saw his father's head pop about the door.

He didn't think he had ever seen the three of them so relieved to see him.

Lifting Draco into his arms instinctively, he felt better for having his son in his arms where he knew he was safe and was going to be forever. Severus was right. The time for pain was over for Draco. It was high time he had some comfort.

"Eliza is his blanket on the back of the chair?" he asked. Exhaustedly, she nodded and passed it to him. Lucius covered his sons back with it, smoothed his hair and kissed his cheek. Almost at once Draco shut his eyes as he lay his head on his father's broad shoulder. Lucius felt him relax. "Shh, its ok baby," he whispered to him. Jane didn't think she had ever seen him so tender with his son. "Would you like to come in with daddy tonight?" Draco response was a sleepy nod and a tightened grip on Lucius.

"Eliza, do you want to sleep here tonight?" he offered and she nodded. "Jane can show her to her normal room please? And Severus if he wants to sleep the night. However, we are not to be disturbed. He needs my undivided attention and that is what he is going to have." He told them before looking at Jane. She had known. She had tried to tell him, and yet she had stayed when things had got really bad for Draco. She had stood by him.

"Thank you Jane," he told her looking in her eye directly.

"Any time sir." She responded knowingly.

Turning, he walked out the open door and left the ladies. Rubbing his sons back gently, he carried him across the landing back to his own bedroom. The two of them were never going to be so far apart again he vowed.

Please Review!