Draco pushed the door open as quietly as possible, making sure to avoid the creaky floorboard as he stepped into the east drawing room, his right forearm prickling. He clutched it with his other hand tightly, approaching a velvet green sofa where his mother sat. A book lay open across her lap, and while her gaze was fixed upon it, Draco noticed it was open to the same page it had been two hours ago when she had sat down to read.

"Mother," he said softly, and she jumped, the book sliding from her knees. Draco swallowed tightly at the deep bags under her eyes when she looked up at him, knowing they were mirrored on his own face.

"Draco, darling," she replied with a small exhale of relief, "You gave me such a fright." There was a long pause as her eyes glanced down to his clutched forearm, and her eyes clouded over slightly.

"We - we are to expect more guests tonight," He said, trying not to let his voice waver. His mother swallowed.

"Of course. I'll have the rooms –"

"It's Him."

That made her start. She snapped her gaze back up to meet his, the concern in her eyes heartbreaking. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it gently.

"Remember what we discussed, Draco. We've practised for this. No matter what happens, we will get through this." She took in a deep breath, stood up, brushed off the front of her robes, and let a pleasant but expressionless mask cover her features.

"Your father -"

A loud thud woke Draco suddenly, his eyes snapping open. He reached quickly for his wand before hearing Blaise swearing angrily and relaxing. The other boy must have knocked something off his nightstand. Draco let out a long, quiet breath, trying to savour the feeling of his mother's hand in his from the dream. That night had been one of the most terrifying of his life, but he had made it through thanks to his mother.

The next few weeks passed in a bit of a blur. Potter seemed to have taken the hint, and had backed off - he still sat next to him in Potions, but made no move to open any conversation. He simply made his poor to mediocre potions and left Draco alone.

Which was good. It was what Draco wanted, what he had asked for. And there was nothing else to it.

It wasn't until Slughorn asked him a question in class that Draco realised he hadn't spoken to another human being in almost a fortnight. He stayed quiet in class, he and Blaise had a mutual understanding, and he certainly didn't have any friends to talk to. He froze, staring at the heavyset man.

"Draco? Should I repeat the question?" Slughorn asked curiously.

Draco cleared his throat. "Um - sorry sir. Phoenix ash is a good substitute, but not often used, as it's fairly expensive for such a trivial brew." He was surprised at how smooth his voice still sounded. He had half expected it to come out raspy and painful.

Slughorn's worried expression melted away. "Well answered, Draco, well answered!"

Draco dipped his head graciously, and Slughorn moved on. Draco let out a release of breath as the class began to brew, and managed to keep his wincing at Potter's poor attempt to a minimum. By the end of the class, when Potter had made his fourteenth blunder, Draco's eye felt it might have a permanent twitch. He had to be doing it on purpose; Potter wasn't stupid, but his potions work was simply abysmal.

It was a relief when the bell rang and Draco could slip out of the classroom, already packed away. It smarted slightly at him, that his favourite class had become something to flee from; three years ago, he would have stayed behind to discuss with Slughorn exactly why salamander liver made the potion so temperamental, but he could no longer afford such luxuries as after-class chats.

His venture into the Great Hall was quick and involved shovelling fish pie into his mouth as quickly as he could without being unbecoming. (While he made plenty of sacrifices in order to avoid the Great Hall as much as possible, he wasn't going to stoop so low as to lose his manners – he wasn't Weasley.)

Draco did his best to ignore both the watchful eyes of Blaise and the suspicious gaze of Terry Boot when he returned to the eighth year common room, heading straight up to his dorm. He stopped short when he looked at the foot of his bed, where a horned owl sat perched, a parcel tied to its leg. It looked at him with something bordering on contempt, and Draco sighed inwardly. Even the owls didn't like him.

The owl hooted with annoyance when he didn't immediately untie the package. Instead, he drew his wand and muttered a detection charm; nothing immediately flared up, so he tapped his wand against the package and it untied from the owl's leg and the brown paper unwrapped itself. The owl gave one last haughty squawk before leaving out a window.

Draco missed the Slytherin common room, but he had to admit he didn't mind having a window and some fresh air in the dormitories. The dungeons could be a little stifling at times.

Turning his attention back to the package, he shut his eyes and sighed. It was a box of sweets from Honeydukes, their new line of licorice broomsticks that fly around your head and leave a trail of licorice-tasting mist behind them. There was no letter or label or any indication of who had sent it, which only confirmed his suspicions. Levitating it gently, he brought it over to the fireplace and dropped it inside.

Over the summer, Malfoy Manor had been inundated with letters soaked in poison, angry Cornish Pixies that flew out of packages as he opened them, even Exploding Snap cards that had been pre-played in order to blow up as soon as he touched them. His first week back at Hogwarts someone had sent him a Howler that blew boomslang venom into his face as it shrieked at him. The next, he'd received an unlabelled package with Devil's Snare inside. In fact, other than Pansy's letter offering a place to stay if he didn't go back to Hogwarts and the letter from McGonagall confirming he was allowed to return, he hadn't received a single piece of mail that wasn't hatemail since –

He stopped that line of thinking in its tracks, and busied himself with his Charms homework.

The next day, Draco overslept. He almost turned around on his heel and headed back to the common room when he saw how full the Great Hall was, but the flow of the crowd was moving in, and he didn't want to have to fight against it. So instead he sat down next to a seventh-year Slytherin girl who didn't look up and kept his gaze focused solely on his scrambled eggs. He tried to ignore the girl when she opened a stack of letters from her family, and giggled with her friends about how abysmally the Chudley Cannons had lost to the Ballycastle Bats last Thursday. He tried to ignore Blaise's knowing looks when the other boy arrived for breakfast and slid into the seat across from Draco. And most of all, he tried to ignore Potter, who sat at the table in front of Draco surrounded by admirers, fans, groupies, and worst of all: friends. Draco did not watch Potter smile softly and nod when Patil asked him a question, or blush awkwardly when a second-year Ravenclaw asked him for an autograph. He certainly did not watch Granger shoo the second-year away immediately while Potter exhaled gratefully. Stupid perfect Potter and his stupid perfect friends.

" - juice, Draco?"

"Hm?" Draco's head snapped round to meet Blaise's dark eyes, one of his perfectly-manicured eyebrows arched thinly.

Blaise did not seem particularly surprised that Draco hadn't heard him. "I asked if you could pass the pumpkin juice." Draco did so, turning his attention back to his eggs. To his surprise, Blaise continued speaking.

"So, are you going to try out?"

Draco blinked at him, confused. There was a beat of silence before Draco realised he was meant to respond. "Try - erm, try out for what?"

The perfect eyebrow, if it was possible, raised even higher. "Quidditch."

That did nothing to alleviate Draco's confusion. "I don't think eighth years are allowed to be on the house teams."

Blaise rolled his eyes. "If you had actually come to breakfast yesterday, you would have heard Professor McGonagall announce that she's splitting the teams. First to fifth years will have their teams and their matches, and sixth, seventh and eight years will have another."

"Oh." Draco finished his glass of pumpkin juice.

"So?"

"What?"

"Are you going to try out or not? They're on Friday. I hear Harper's going to be trying for seeker, and if he gets on the team, we'll lose for sure."

That made Draco look up, and he snapped at Blaise. "You think Slytherin is going to have a chance at winning? You think anyone is going to let that happen?" Suddenly the rest of his breakfast didn't look appetising. "I didn't think you of all people would be naïve, Blaise. I can't play quidditch."

"Why not?" Blaise didn't seem fazed, which made Draco even more furious.

" Why not ?" He hissed under his breath. "Are you thick? Of course I can't. Even if McGonagall let me try out, she'd be blasted with owls demanding that she forbid me to play."

"I don't think -"

"No, Blaise, clearly you don't." Draco grabbed his bag and fled from the room, gritting his teeth at the whispers.

His foul mood lasted several hours, and when he returned to the common room after lunch, his anger making him careless, he slammed into someone and nearly laughed when he realised who it was. It was just his luck.

"Ouch! Watch where you're - oh. Malfoy." Granger looked awkwardly at him, her frizzy hair making her look a little like a cat that's puffed its fur up in fright. She recovered quickly, picking up the book she had dropped and brushing off her robes. Draco looked at the ground and made to go around her but she stepped in front of him.

"Well?" She asked expectantly. "Aren't you going to apologise?"

Draco stared at her. She wanted him to apologise now? In the middle of the corridor? He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out so he just closed it again. Granger still didn't move, and waited.

He tried again. "Erm – I don't – you were at my trial. I think I said - well – I obviously should have done more to – erm – but I was afraid – I mean, everyone was, you can't expect me to have resisted – He was so powerful, and…" he drifted to a halt as Granger's expression turned odd.

"I meant for running into me."

"Oh." Draco felt like an idiot, and he could feel his cheeks tinge pink.

"Yeah."

"Sorry."

"Good." She stepped around him and kept walking, leaving Draco standing there dumbly until a loud crash shook him out of it, Peeves soaring through the corridor and Filch hobbling after him yelling obscenities. Draco shook himself and entered, resigning the evening to his Transfiguration homework as he sat at a small desk in the corner.

He opened his textbook and flipped through to find Chapter Twelve when there was a quiet thump as something fell out of the pages. He leant down to pick it up and his chest tightened. It was a white peacock feather, the end of it carved into a quill. Draco could taste iron - he must have bitten his cheek too hard.

During the war his mother hadn't trusted that their mail wasn't being read – she knew Yaxley had charmed all the quills he'd come across to tell him what was being written with them – so she had taken to making her own, and then sending them along with the letters to be sure Yaxley wouldn't get his hands on them. She had perfect the art in the last few weeks before the Battle of Hogwarts, and in another life, she might have had quite a lucrative side hobby. This was the last one she had made before the ministry arrested her.

The lump in Draco's throat refused to let him swallow, and his hands were too unsteady to properly right any notes, so Draco stowed his things and headed up to his bed. It took several minutes for his shaky hands to open the vial of calming draught, but once he drank it, he pulled the curtains on his bed and buried himself under his blankets, trying desperately not to let the tears leak from his eyes.

He just wanted to get through his last year at school, graduate, and find some brainless job at the ministry where he could forget who he was and leave the rest of the world to do the same. He didn't want distractions. But the pathetic fact of the matter was, Draco was lonely. Draco was hurting. And more than anything, Draco missed his mother.