A/N:Happy Holidays everyone! This chapter marks a personal landmark for me as I have reached 100,000 words of this fic! So join me in celebration with tea and cake and my endless thanks to you all for sticking with me and Severus for so many words! You all mean the world to me, reviewers ir non-reviewers, and here's my solemn promise to you that this fic will, one day, be complete. On another note, fear not, the Draco we see now will be turning into as canon a Draco as I can before the fic is done. As stated previously, my intention is still to follow him through his first year. I have been planning this plot point for several years so I hope it works as well as I think it will! Another thing, I know many of you read this story for the angst and suffering inflicted upon poor Draco, and although his childhood will never turn into an ideal one, I am not going to sacrifice plot and character developement in favour of angst. This story is my baby and it's worth more than that, I hope you understand :) I don't think there's anything else I desperately wanted to say...humm... Enjoy the chapter, I think it's my longest yet, and I'll get the next one on the go ASAP :)

All my love always, LadyLilyMalfoy xxxx

December 24th 1988

Having done my familial duty to my parents, the earliest I could get to Malfoy Manor was Christmas Eve. As usual for that time of year, the house was vibrant with light and life, filled with an eclectic mix of friends, relatives, acquaintances, people Lucius merely wanted to show off in front off... It was the single time of the year that Lucius hosted his own party, but it was widely considered to be the most desired event to be invited to, particularly to Pure-Blooded mothers with unmarried daughters. Coincidentally, I rarely attended myself, but I had been away for so long it was worth it this once.

With a ten-foot pine tree covered from top to bottom in tiny candles in every room and house-elves dressed in tinsel, the Manor's decorations rivalled even Hogwarts'. For someone who was not naturally ebullient, Lucius could be surprisingly festive when he wanted to be. Lucius himself was surrounded by people in the middle of the ball room, many of whom I had never even seen before. I pushed my way through the throng of satin and silk, largely ignored, as usual, by the Wizarding Aristocracy. That was perfectly fine by me.

Lucius waved when he saw me and grabbed my sleeve, pulling me the rest of the way before thrusting the tiniest crystal glass into my hand. "Severus!" he greeted my brightly, unaware of the annoyed looks we were getting from those I had stolen his attention from. "Thought you were never going to make it!"

I winced as the alcohol burned through my throat. "Neither did I. Quite a gathering you have here!"

Lucius nodded proudly. "Awful isn't it?" he said with a smile. "Still, Narcissa's enjoying herself and it's only one day. Have to keep the peasants happy and all that." He shot me a wink as the dirty looks shifted from me to him.

I suppressed a smirk, reminded suddenly of the Christmas holidays of my third year when Lucius invited me to stay. The Christmas Eve party was almost identical to this and Lucius, who had always found it unbearable, spent the entire night getting me drunk, telling scandalous stories about every one of the guests and avoiding the advances of Bellatrix Black. Times had not changed much.

I nodded discreetly towards the open French windows at the back of the room. "Fancy making an escape?"

Almost wistfully, Lucius sighed but shook his head. "Unfortunately, I am in high demand tonight. However, I will not make you suffer through it when I know you could have much more engaging company."

"And where is Draco tonight?"

Lucius shrugged. "Around. I think the children are playing a game somewhere, so if you find one, you'll find the others. Good luck."

In my opinion, it was Lucius who needed the luck. I bid him farewell and made my escape.

It took a fair while to find any small people, being as well practised in the art of concealment as the previous generation. Eventually, a quick movement caught my eye- Theodore Nott darting behind a statue. I called ought to him and the mousey haired boy peered out from his hiding place, glaring at me and pressing a finger to his lips.

"What's going on?" I whispered, crouching beside Theodore. "Where's Draco?"

Theo shot me a withering look. "I can't tell you that!" he hissed back, scandalised. "We're hiding from the girls!" He cast a quick, furtive glance around the corner, then told me in a low voice that told me exactly how serious the situation was, "They've got mistletoe."

"Aah," I nodded understandingly. "You don't want to be caught by mistletoe."

"They've already captured Blaise," Theodore told me fearfully. "We haven't seen him since!"

"If I save him, will you tell me where Draco is?" I bargained.

Theo considered this offer, then shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid he's beyond hope. It's been at least ten minutes. But," he leaned closer, "If you swear on all that you hold dear that you will not give our positions away, I might be able to reveal where Draco Malfoy is concealed."

"I think that is a fair arrangement." I held out my hand which Theodore shook with the austerity commanded by the situation. "I, Severus Snape, do swear on all that I hold dear, that I will not give any of your positions away to the girls who are armed with mistletoe."

"Very well." With another stealthy sweeping gaze, he leaned up to whisper in my ear, "Try under the tree in the drawing room."

I thanked him graciously, before creeping out into the hall once more.

I peered through the branches and baubles and tinsel to see two blue-grey eyes looking back at me. "Good evening Draco."

There was a scramble and a shower of pine-needles, then Draco stood up and brushed himself down before smiling up at me. "Hullo Sir."

He looked well, if a little dishevelled from the time spent beneath the tree. "How are you?"

"Fine, thank you. But," his expression became suddenly very serious, "the girls have mistletoe."

"So I've heard. A very nasty business according to Theodore."

Draco nodded gravely. "They've got Blaise."

"A tragedy if ever I heard one."

"Did you bring me a present?" Draco asked suddenly, brightening. "You did promise..."

"Of course I did."

"Can I have it now?"

"No."

Draco humphed and sighed, but I could see he didn't really care. "Will you tell me about Hogwarts?"

"Tomorrow," I promised and Draco grinned, dancing from foot to foot. I wondered idly how much sugar they had managed to steal that evening.

Suddenly, the door handle turned and another voice- Gregory Goyle's- came from under the tree. "Draco! They're coming! Retreat!"

The boys managed to conceal themselves just in time before a group of three small girls, Pansy Parkinson and the Greengrass sisters, each armed to the teeth with mistletoe, marched in and glared at me suspiciously.

Pansy stalked up to me, hands on hips. "I know they're in here," she challenged, red ribbons not detracting from her surprisingly imposing form in the slightest.

I feigned innocence, keenly aware of the vow I made with Theodore. "I have no idea what you are talking about."

Brown eyes were narrowed, a very Slytherin eyebrow arched. A weaker man would have definitely been cowed.

Then, quick as a curse, the girls stormed past me and dived under the tree, ferreting the boys out like terriers. Gregory shrieked and bolted from the room with Daphne and Asteria hot on his tail, whilst Pansy cornered Draco, her branch of mistletoe held threateningly out before her. Draco's expression was half serious, half exhilarated as the advanced towards him, eyes darting to me, begging for help.

I replied with a slight shake of my head and an amused smile; this would be good practise for the future.

Draco laughed as she chased him around the room, darting around sofas and scooting under tables, but, soon, Pansy had him cornered.

They were both breathless with the excursion as the little girl advanced triumphantly. She pursed her lips as she got closer, leaning forward with clear intention. I watched Draco's smile falter as she got closer as suddenly it stopped being a game and wandered into uncomfortable territory.

The moment came and went before I had a chance to avert it; Pansy grabbed Draco's shirt in both hands, pulling him closer to claim her prize.

Sparks certainly flew, but not in the way that Pansy had been hoping for. An explosion most similar to a pistol shot reverberated from wall to wall and Pansy was thrown across the room to land in a heap of ribbon and silk, stunned.

Pansy's bottom lip quivered dangerously and I tried to rush to her side in time to extinguish the next big explosion...

"Daddyyy!"

As I felt my ears bleed, I cursed my inability to time anything properly that day. A banshee could not have produced a more soul curdling sound.

The door of the drawing room was flung open and Lucius appeared, closely followed by Mr Parkinson and several others, clearly- and understandably- alarmed by the bang.

Lucius stopped dead in the threshold as he felt the static residue of Draco's magic linger in the air. He stared at me questioningly, almost fearful it seemed.

Pushing his way past him, Mr Parkinson's gaze darted from his daughter, wailing on the ground, to Draco who remained still and stunned by the fireplace, before resting on me, who was feeling much guiltier than I should have.

"What on earth is going on here?" he demanded sharply, pallor turning puce beneath his moustache. "What have you done to my daughter?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Excuse me?"

Sensing another impending explosion, Lucius stepped in between us quickly. "I am quite sure," he said in his best diplomatic politician voice, "that there is absolutely no need for such insinuations. Clearly, the children were playing a game that simply... got out of hand. I expect Miss Parkinson is more shaken than hurt, don't you think?"

It seemed that Lucius was desperately trying to avoid the asking the question and the answers that would entail.

Unfortunately, rationality did not make Mr Parkinson feel any better about the situation. "My daughter has been attacked!" he thundered, arms flailing dramatically. Lucius looked as though something disgusting had just been deposited in front of him as the small man spluttered and ranted under his nose. Mr Parkinson rounded on me suddenly, jabbing me in the chest with a jewelled finger. "If it wasn't you," I met his glare unflinchingly, "Then it must have been him." The finger that had been gauging a hole in my chest was thrust in the direction of Draco. The boy didn't even seem to notice that all eyes were now focused solely on him. I had witnessed that look far too many times last summer not to recognise it.

"This is not acceptable!" Mr Parkinson was thundering at Lucius, who merely stood there with a very bored expression on his face. "This is your responsibility Lucius, deal with it!"

Lucius did not speak for a while and, for a moment, I was sure that he would argue back in Draco's defence. But, to my absolute disappointment, his expression hardened. "Very well."

Mr Parkinson looked triumphant. I wanted to kill them both.

"It was an accident!" I burst out, unable to keep my silence any longer. "They are children! These things happen!"

He may have only come up to my nose in stature, but Mr Parkinson still struck an imposing figure as he squared up to me. "My daughter has been injured," he snarled. "That boy is out of control and needs to be taught a lesson." He looked me up and down contemptuously. "Not that it is any of your concern, Snape."

"Severus,"

Lucius' hand on my shoulder restrained me from either telling the odious man precisely where he could stick his lesson or breaking his bloody nose.

"Gideon," his voice was sedate as he gently pushed me out the way, "I think that you have said everything that needs to be said. Might I suggest that you look after your daughter and let me deal with Draco?"

I physically felt my blood run cold and a migraine threatened to start. We could not go through this again. I couldn't... I didn't have the energy, physically or emotionally, besides the fact that I had most definitely run out of options when it came to saving Draco... !

Finally persuaded to rejoin the party, Mr Parkinson picked up Pansy and stormed out, the straggle of curious guests following at Lucius' insistence.

He turned, saw my expression and sighed, "You needn't look at me like that."

I did not trust myself to speak.

Lucius glared with frustration and growled, "For god sake Severus!" before stalking across the cream carpet towards Draco.

Throughout the entire exchange between Mr Parkinson and his father, Draco had not moved a centimetre. If anything, he seemed entirely oblivious to anything that had taken place at all. Even now, as Lucius approached his feet seemed rooted to the spot, eyes fixed firmly on a very particular place in the near distance.

Lucius leaned down, hands on his knees. "Draco?" he said softly.

The boy's eyes flicked up, life slowly returning.

"You need to tell me what happened."

-Confusion flickered across Draco's face. "When?" he whispered, frowning.

"Just now. Just a moment ago."

Draco paused, thinking hard. Then, hopelessly, "I don't remember."

"Severus?" He looked to me for the explanation, his concern for Draco blatant now that the others had left.

I felt my own fear wash away with relief, and, if I'm honest, more than a little guilt that I had had such little faith in Lucius. "The children were playing a game," I told him. "There was mistletoe involved. It was all fine and then-"

"I didn't mean to," Draco spoke up suddenly, shifting fretfully from foot to foot. "She was...She was going to...And I thought... And then... Like be-before..." A shadow passed across the little boy's face and he shuddered as though a ghost has swept through him.

Lucius caught Draco as he fell, drawing him quickly in and shielding him from the evil that was clearly haunting him. As Draco sobbed into his father's shoulder, I wondered if the spirit of William Southard would ever release him, or would we be fighting it off forever? I could see from his face that Lucius was as scared as Draco.

25th December 1988

Christmas day itself was exactly how a Christmas day ought to be; conflicted. Having stayed up long into the early hours after the last guest had departed, it had seemed a good idea at the time to consume any remaining dregs of alcohol that had happened to escape consumption during the party.

"I can't abide waste," was Lucius' ready excuse. By that point, I was too far gone to care about any justification.

However, this meant that we spent the majority of Christmas morning sprawled tragically across the sofas of the casual sitting room, nursing terrible hangovers with the curtains very much closed.

Lucius' mother, on the other hand, had very different ideas of how Christmas ought to be spent and was disgusted by her son's casual attitude towards what was supposed to be a very traditional occasion. It may be of interest to here mention that Abraxas Malfoy really couldn't care less and was more than happy to be left in the company of The Daily Prophet's crossword. Like Lucius, he couldn't abide having to be companionable and would only be sociable if it was absolutely necessary, which was more often than not due purely to Seraphina's cajoling.

As we lay unceremoniously in living room, looking a right sorry state, she bustled into the darkness, tutting as she swept around the room moving ornaments an inch to the left, straightening cushions that didn't need to be straightened and fussing unnecessarily- things she would never have condescended to do when she had been mistress of Malfoy Manor.

She turned her critical eyes up on us with the same expression of contempt that was so at home on Lucius' face, and then, with neither word nor warning, the curtains flew open seemingly of their own accord and bright white natural light flooded in like a burst dam, promptly blinding us in the process.

"Gaah!" we both yelled in protest, shielding our eyes against the pain now added to our already throbbing skulls.

Struggling to sit up, Lucius snarled at his mother, "What the hell did you do that for?"

Mrs Malfoy regarded him coolly. "Well, if you will insist upon lazing about all day..."

"So?" The presence of his parents always seemed to bring out the petulant teenager in Lucius.

"So the it is nearly midday, we will be eating in half an hour and you look an absolute disgrace! Not to mention that your father has resorted to starting the crossword and you know how impossible it is to get him away from it once he has started!" She stormed round and smacked Lucius' legs off the sofa. "Get up at once!"

I was entirely ignored. For some reason, she seemed to find me immensely irksome and had always simply pretended that I did not exist, which Lucius seemed to find rather amusing. Sometimes, I think he only invited me to the manor in the holidays to irritate his mother.

"The state you have allowed Narcissa to let this house get in..." the Malfoy matriarch continued waspishly as she waited, satin slippered foot tapping impatiently, for us to rouse ourselves. "We might as well just hand it over to the muggles and have done with it."

Lucius fought hard not to snap back, jaw clenched so tightly I'm surprised his teeth didn't break.

"One week," he muttered darkly as we left to make ourselves presentable. "One damned week and I won't have to put up with them for another year..."

I patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. "But it's going to be a long one," I said helpfully.

"No. Absolutely not. You have already made a mockery this Christmas, Lucius, your father and I-"

"This has nothing to do with me Seraphina."

"-will not tolerate any more of your blatant disregard for the traditions of this household!"

"Mother, it is ridiculous to be eating dinner at midday! Nobody is hungry, I am merely suggesting that we change the order-"

"No."

But-"

"I said no!"

"With respect," Lucius ground out in a way that clearly suggested that respect had nothing to do with it, "It is I who make the decisions in this house now. I know that that is hard for you to understand but try. Father can finish the crossword, Draco can open his presents and you can have a large sherry, then we'll all be happy, won't we?"

Draco, Narcissa and I hovered awkwardly a little way off from where the combat was taking place, Abraxas pretending to be deeply engrossed in the front page of his precious Prophet so that he wouldn't be dragged into it.

Since retiring from the estate, Abraxas Malfoy had become a much more mild mannered man than he had been in Lucius' youth; whereas once he had been easier to anger than even Lucius was, now there was next to nothing that could rouse Abraxas from his perpetual state of disinterest. It seemed that, in his opinion, every responsibility he had once shouldered had now been passed on to his son (whether he thought him competent at the job or not) and, by Merlin, he was going to make the most of it. His wife, on the other hand, was much less well disposed to this concept. She refused to see him as anything other than the same flippant and irresponsible boy that he had been at fifteen when he had refused to revise for his OWLs, deeming them to be "a pointless waste of time", as he had written during his rebellious phase. She thought him too indulgent of Draco, she had always disapproved of Narcissa and as for his choice of company... Well, it didn't bear thinking about. The high standards of appearance and propriety that the Malfoy name had always commanded were falling away to nothing, as far as she could see. Which, considering the amount of pressure Lucius placed himself under trying to maintain precisely those things, wasn't very far at all.

It was times like these that I was supremely grateful that I was not born into a pure-blooded family.

With a triumphantly serene smile, Lucius turned his back on his mother and strode up to us, put an arm around a confused looking Narcissa and lead the way back into the casual sitting room with a bright, "Shall we?"

It was hard for even the bitter Seraphina not to feel the joys that Christmas can bring as, as promised, the sherry was passed around along with packages of various shapes and sizes, wrapped in different brightly coloures papers.

Lucius seemed as delighted with my gift of a box of Honeyduke's finest as Draco was with the new Comet 260 his parents had given him, and promptly began to spoil his appetite within seconds of unwrapping it. For Narcissa, I had wondered hopelessly around Hogsmeade for several bitterly cold hours before swallowing my pride and asking for assistance from the very amiable assistants in Gladrags Wizardwear, who sourced for me a scarf made of a beautiful fairy-made cloth which was so fine it felt like some but still kept your neck perfectly warm.

From the Malfoys, I received a set of handsome leather-bound journals of varying size with my initials embossed in silver on the spine of each book. "For all the notes you are constantly scribbling and then losing," Lucius explained. "You have no excuse now."

"My turn!" Draco bounced up, the incident of last night forgotten as quickly as it had come. He was almost dancing with excited anticipation. "Please!" he added after a 'look' from his grandmother.

"Since you have been so patient," I laughed, reaching behind my back before handing the present to Draco. There was no pretence at carefulness; the paper was torn to shreds as I watched him, praying that I had chosen the right thing. But, really, I knew that I had. I had known what to buy Draco for Christmas ever since September.

I had not been mistaken.

The adults winced, myself included, as Draco shrieked with joy, bouncing like a billiwig. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

I hugged him tight as he sprang happily at me, the green and grey scarf flung around both our necks. "Happy Christmas, Dragon."

I was unaware, at that point, the filthy look I was getting from Lucius.