Draco stared up at the dark curtain above his head, his hands folded neatly underneath his head. His blond hair was rumpled and his shirt collar was crooked. The corners of his eyes tightened minutely as he lazily found strange patterns in the cloth. Every now and then, he would blink, sending the designs swimming around the insides of his eyelids.

His chest steadily rose and fell, the silence bearing down on him unsympathetically. Words and half thought-out phrases drifted through his mind with each smooth breath. The sleeves of his wrinkled white silk shirt were rolled up, the edges uneven. A small smile crossed his lips for a moment before it faded.

Time—it comes and goes, never staying in one place for long. It's funny, actually. We dismiss it when we have plenty, but once it runs out, we suddenly cry out for more, Draco thought absently, his eyes tracing a loose thread in the bed curtain. Lately his thoughts had turned inward, as if that would help him puzzle out what he ought to do with his life. Not many options, he mused with a sigh.

One: go to Azkaban for murder, attempted murder, crimes against humanity charges, et cetera, et cetera. Two: go back to Hogwarts and be subjected to all the staring, whispers, glares, and curses. At that thought, he snorted in contempt, the sound eerily loud in the silence. As if. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Option three: lie here all day and night until I die. The latter option held slightly more appeal than the previous two. Draco grinned humorlessly to himself, his teeth shinning in the darkness.

How pathetic I've become. Next thing you know, I'll be begging for change in the corner of the Leaky Cauldron. Hmph. What other choice did he have, though? Father is facing the possibility of a Dementor's Kiss, Mother's charges are slowly being dismissed because of how she helped Potter, and public opinion is firmly turned against the Malfoy name. Eh, one out of three isn't too bad I suppose.

It was not as if he could go out and get a job, Merlin forbid. Even if I did want to work for a living, he mused with a disgusted grimace on his face, no one would hire me because of my last name.

He knew what people said about him and his family behind their backs. Sometimes, the braver ones would say them to their faces. Murderers, Death Eaters, demon spawn, You-Know-Who's right hand family. Of course, that last one had expired long ago. However, the truth never mattered to the public—only the majority's opinion did.

If enough people thought that I was Scarhead's brother, (he shivered at the mere thought), then nothing I said would convince them otherwise. Is it fair? No, but it's life. My life, as a matter of fact.

Draco had always been a firm believer in natural selection. Only the strong survived—the rest did not. It was the simple truth of life. However, it seemed that people like Saint Potter and his two sidekicks had slightly different opinions on the matter.

Bloody bleeding hearts, he thought sourly. Not everyone makes it in this world. If they did, then no one would have any status whatsoever. Not everyone could be the master. There had to be servants to serve him, or else he was not a true master, now was he? Him being a general term, of course.

I'm certainly no master, Draco mused, grimacing ruefully. Not anymore.

Luxury and wealth was all he had ever known. He had been raised in the belief that most people were beneath him; that the world revolved around the powerful, with the Malfoy name being the most prominent. After the Great War, however, the circumstances had changed. Most of the changes were for the worse, at least as far as the old families were concerned. No more did the wealthy, prominent pureblood families control the Ministry. After Kingsley Shacklebolt became the new Minister of Magic, he changed things—so many things. Fair, the public called it; democratic; an opportunity for equal representation. However one labeled the new system, it did not bode well for the Malfoys and their colleagues.

And where does that leave me? Stuck here with nothing to do but ponder the meaning of life, Draco answered himself with a humorless chuckle. He absently glanced over at his left forearm. The black snake and skull had not so much as lightened after Voldemort's death.

I'm stuck with it—forever.

His grey eyes seemed dull and lifeless. He had always been pale, but now he resembled a badly resurrected inferi. There were bags under his eyes and his skin had an unhealthy grey tint. In fact, he looked much as he did his sixth year when he was stressing over how to kill Dumbledore. He remembered that year well—too well, in fact. Sometimes, he would wake up gasping for breath in the middle of the night as he relived that awful moment on top of the astronomy tower. His bed would be soaked with sweat, his eyes watery and his face flushed feverishly.

He was never able to go back to sleep after such a nightmare.

Aunt Bellatrix had it easy; she got to leave this life behind. With my luck though, I would end up a ghost like the Bloody Baron, forever doomed to wander the halls of my torment and remember my sodding miserable life.

A knock at the door interrupted his bitter musings. Draco slowly sat up in his bed, carefully pulling down the sleeves of his shirt. It would do no good since everyone already knew he had it, but he could not help but try to hide it. It was not that he was ashamed of it, per say, but it had become a habit to keep it from everyone at Hogwarts. As they say, old habits are hard to break, especially the not-so-good ones.

"What now?" he called out wearily, his muscles tightening unconsciously.

His mother's voice, quiet but firm, answered him. "Draco, your father wants to talk to you."

Draco barred his teeth in frustration at her words. His relationship with his father had not been the same since the War ended. Conversations were tense between them, interaction limited severely with neither party protesting. It was hard to look at the man he had once thought the world about and to know just how human he really was—how weak he was. Carefully constructed illusions had been shattered when the Dark Lord came back to power. The resulting shards had pierced both Lucius's and Draco's hearts, lodging themselves deep down where it hurt the most.

Finally, after taking a deep, calming breath, Draco straightened his shoulders and opened his door. Greeting his mother with a nod, he strode down the hall ahead of her, his long legs eating up the distance. He was anxious to get this meeting over with so that he could go back to staring at his bed curtain. He mentally winced at his thoughts.

That sounded more pathetic than I thought it would.

At the end of the hall were bronze-handled double doors. With a final deep breath, Draco pulled the doors open, his face a blank slate, free of any trace of emotion that could later be used against him. It was an old game he had played, once willingly, eagerly even, but now only by necessity and habit.

Narcissa followed her son into the drawing-room, her hands clasped together tightly. The bottom of her long black robes swished gently with every step. The pale, stern faces of the portraits stared down at Draco as he waited impatiently in front of his father's chair. The silence pressed down on him until he squirmed, finally attracting the man's attention.

Lucius glanced up from the paper he was reading, his eyes narrowing. He did not overlook the crumpled sleeves of his son's shirt. Taking a mental note of the sight for later review, the man laid down the newest Daily Prophet edition and cleared his throat. He pressed his hands together under his pointy chin thoughtfully, his long silver hair falling forward.

"Ah, Draco. There you are. I called you here to discuss your imminent return to Hogwa—," Lucius started smoothly.

"I'm not going," the young man interrupted, his eyes taking on a flint-like quality. Narcissa pursed her lips disapprovingly, her fingers tightening on the back of her husband's chair as she shook her head warningly.

Lucius studied his son in the tomblike silence, his eyes assessing every inch of him. He looks like me, the man mused with a frown. And his tongue is as sharp as mine was at his age. It's just too bad that he thinks he can use it against his own father. The boy has much to learn.

"I don't think you understood me. You will be going to Hogwarts, whether you like it or not. Think of it as a chance to restore your reputation. We will all lose face if you do not return. Do you want the public thinking we are weak? Besides, I hear Granger and Weasley are going back. And with Potter off chasing his foolish dream of becoming an Auror, they will have no one to hide behind. Of course, you are not to make trouble. We can't have the Malfoy name besmirched further. However, you can...take the opportunity to see just where their loyalties lie. Arthur's youngest child, the girl, is also returning. The latest news in the Daily Prophet is that she has 'broken up' with Potter, as you young ones say these days. Her heart must be very tender right now...," he trailed off suggestively, one eyebrow raised.

Draco openly sneered at him, unable to believe what his father was asking of him. "You want me to go back to that despicable place just so you can have some revenge? I am not some house-elf you can order around. Get someone else to do you dirty work, because I'm sick of it!"

With that said, he turned around and stalked out of the room without another word.

Lucius stared at the retreating back of his furious son. He did not so much as blink at the ear shattering bang that echoed through the room as Draco angrily shoved the doors open, sending them crashing back against the stone wall. A smile played on the man's pale lips as he pondered over his current predicament.

"He has your temper," Lucius remarked lightly to his wife, his gaze never straying from the now empty hall. Narcissa sighed and walked around the chair, getting down on her knees in front of him. Her eyes gazed up at her husband pleadingly.

"Lucius, you know how much I hate it when the both of you fight. We're a family! Our bond is the only thing the Ministry cannot take from us. Only we, ourselves, can destroy it. And I fear that is what we are doing! Please, try to see it his way. Hogwarts is the place where he spent seven years with that Potter boy. It's where he slaved away in that horrid room, trying to find some way to let the Death Eaters into the school. He was almost forced to kill Dumbledore there. It's the place where Vincent, the Crabbes' boy, died along with so many others of his classmates. Do you really have to force him to go back to all that?"

Lucius raised a finely sculpted eyebrow at her. "And what, my dear, do you think will happen to him if he does not go back? What will he do? Stay locked up in his room for the rest of his life? The war is over. We must learn to adapt. We can no longer depend on our vast banking account to see us through life; that is why Draco must go back to Hogwarts. He needs to get a proper education and go on to work for the Ministry so that our prestige will be restored once more. He is our last hope, Narcissa. There are no more children in our future; the Malfoy name ends with Draco, and I will not have it sullied by a bum of a son. He will just have to man up and face Hogwarts once and for all."

Seeing her less than convinced expression, he changed his tactics. "Narcissa, Cissy," he whispered, taking her hands and kissing them softly. "Our only chance at getting on with our lives is to make an effort to. Draco is strong. He'll get over it soon enough."

Lucius stroked Narcissa's cheek, his eyes warmer and more loving than they had been in years. After nearly loosing his family because of the Dark Lord, he now appreciated them so much more.

Narcissa frowned up at him before getting to her feet with a sigh. "Ohhh, my bones did not ache this much last year," she moaned. Her husband chuckled under his breath as he stood up in front of her.

"But you're even more beautiful now than you were then," he murmured into her ear, his arms wrapping around her slender waist. After a slow, heartfelt kiss, they made their way out of the room together, their hands still entwined.