"There is a house in New Orleans

They call the Rising Sun

And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

And God, I know I'm one."

*Meanwhile*

A piercing scream echoed from the cell at the end of a dark, damp corridor.

"No more," a hoarse voice begged, "I'll give you whatever you want."

A taunting response, saturated with sick enjoyment laughed. "Ah, but what if what I want is this… Crucio!"

The screaming of the prisoner continued, rattling off the dungeon walls and down the hall where Draco stood as a guard.

He winced at the desperate sobs that followed. Occlude, he told himself, push it all away until later. You can bear anything for a second… a minute… an hour… Until he could return to his room to fall apart.

Draco often wondered how he had preserved his sanity for this long. Playing host for the Dark Lord in his personal home for two and a half years should have numbed him to the screams and the cries of the prisoners of Malfoy Manor, but they hadn't. He knew they would take their toll later when he would rip at his long hair and scratch gouges in his own back deep enough to leave scars while he sobbed for their suffering and his, too, on the floor of his shower.

The past week had provided so much fuel for his nightmares. He had had to maintain a constant glamour to hide the bruised look the circles under his eyes had taken.

When reflecting upon one of the worst days of his life, Draco realized he had spent much of the Battle of Hogwarts hiding. He knew he did not want to fight his classmates and certainly did not want to kill anyone. He was lucky to have avoided fighting actively for as long as he had but luck was not on his side.

Once the acromantulas had arrived, their indiscriminate massacre of any living being on the field effectively ended his hiding as their senses quickly discovered him beneath a cheap invisibility cloak, and he was thrown unwillingly into battle. He had been punished greatly for failing to kill Dumbledore and knew that his performance on the field would have to leave no questions once he could be seen by the other death eaters.

He threw off his cloak and immediately engaged a man with red hair in battle. While Draco tried to avoid casting anything lethal, he found himself being pushed back towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest and subsequently towards a large mass of giant spiders.

Suddenly, a spray of dragon fire lit up the battlefield too close for comfort, disintegrating people and spiders in its path. Draco continued to block an onslaught of spells coming from his opponent's wand. As smoke began to sting his eyes, Draco noticed the sky above him darkening as he found himself in a growing shadow; though his name may denote a dragon, he had no illusions that he would be resistant to the flames that would surely be coming his way. As both he and his opponent registered this greater threat, Draco sent a diffindo towards the red-head's throat before sprinting away. Draco felt the heat on his back as his challenger was consumed by flames.

While running for his life back towards the castle, he cast a few protegos to avoid the curses flying from his right. Distracted, he failed to notice a young girl fleeing a particularly aggressive acromantula. They collided into each other and, knocked to the ground, the acromantula leaped towards them both, no doubt excited about doubling its treat.

Without a second thought, Draco shoved Marietta Edgecomb towards the beast to slow it down and scrambled backwards before getting to his feet to run. He saw the acromantula silence her screams as it ripped out her throat with its fangs, and its acidic venom dissolved the skin on her face. The scene had replayed in his head on a loop ever since.

The trauma continued even once the battle was over, and prisoners had to be transferred to a secure place for interrogation. Unfortunately, the majority had been delivered to the dungeons beneath Malfoy Manor. Draco returned to his home disheartened and terrified of what would come next.

A great party had been demanded by the Dark Lord that night, so drunk death eaters spent the night satisfying themselves with varying levels of depravity and sadism as they put different prisoners under the imperious curse, tortured, and assaulted them. Draco sat in the corner of the largest sitting room, drinking an entire bottle of fire whiskey with his equally unenthused friends. Pansy, Blaise, and Theo had all been sucked into this war with him. While visibly they looked from the outside as if they were participating in the debauchery, they were all hopeless and numb to the atrocities happening around them, playing a role that their parents had pushed upon them. The cries of their former classmates, pleas for any of them to help while the group watched on with dead eyes, would haunt him for the rest of his life.

He had to do so many desperate and despicable things since being force to take the mark; he knew that failure meant his mother could be punished, and his father could no longer offer them any protection. Their fate rested on Draco's heavy shoulders.

Shaken from his thoughts, and glad for the distraction, he heard the jangling of keys from the other side of the dungeon door.

"Avery," Draco bowed his head slightly in mock deference, "how nice to see you. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Avery sneered, his lank, greasy brown hair framing his pock-marked face, "I'm not here to see you," he scowled, "Where is Bellatrix?"

Before Draco could formulate a sarcastic response, another scream reverberated off the walls. Avery promptly dismissed Draco's existence and strode towards the source of the unpleasant sound, turning immediately into the cell.

"Avada Kedavra!" The flash of green light illuminated the mass of filthy prisoners huddled in their cells, trying not to be noticed. Draco could hear a body hitting the wet floor with a smack followed by a shrill shriek of frustration.

"Aw, Avery, we were just getting started." Bellatrix whined. "Have you suddenly joined the Aurors? Why must you ruin all my fun?"

"We don't have time for your little games," Avery said with disgust. "You've been summoned. We all have. The Dark Lord is going to reveal our next move, and he has a special role for you."

Bellatrix cackled as she clapped her hands in glee, "I knew it! Maybe I can earn myself another pet. You know how much I love to play."

They departed the cell together and strode down the hall, cloaks flapping behind them with Bellatrix's dripping blood on her high heeled boots and leaving the floor speckled behind her. When a passing Draco, Bellatrix pouted at him and said in a sing-song voice, "He ruined my game, Drakey-poo; you didn't even get to play this time." Draco tried not to look as disturbed as he felt while he spared his aunt what he hoped could be interpreted as a sympathetic glance. After all, there was no good reason to provoke a witch that unhinged. He had his part to play and played it well; that's why he was still alive even though it made him sick to his stomach.

Without sparing him a look, Avery simply said, "You're summoned, too," and continued up the stairs quickly, Bellatrix by his side as they exited the dungeon.

"I don't take orders from you," Draco mumbled sullenly into the space Avery had just vacated. His mark began to burn uncomfortably; they were indeed being summoned, and he did answer to the Dark Lord. He had no choice.

Draco straightened his shoulders and sighed.

This can't be good, he thought, it's never good.

Resigned, he shut the heavy door behind him, locked it magically, and climbed the stairs to follow the veteran death eaters to the ballroom.

Draco was sure to keep his expression as blank as possible for when he entered what used to be one of the most enchanting rooms in the entire manor. Even when occluding, it was hard to hold back the misery Draco felt at seeing its current state. Now, the beautiful marble floor remained permanently stained with blood, and the house elves had resorted to decorating the great pillars with fresh flowers cut from the gardens daily and adorning every free surface with vases to try to mitigate the smell of death.

In a mockery of a fine palace, the Dark Lord had erected a garish throne upon a dais in the center of the room. He sat elegantly, with his bony hands caressing the brightly polished human skulls affixed to the front of each arm of his green velvet, silver trimmed chair. Bellatrix sat at his feet, looking manic and happy, which was never a good sign.

Draco averted his gaze as the red eyes scanned the gathering crowd and spotted his mother and father hovering near the back of the ballroom. He moved to join them.

Two and a half years of living with terrorists had also taken its toll on his parents. All of them had lost much weight from the stress, and their constant occluding had left deep scars internally.

His father was a ghost of himself, even more so since falling out of favor with the Dark Lord. Lucius' hair had begun to thin out, and his eyes were haunted from his time spent in Azkaban. Where his mother used to look young for her age, extreme stress had settled in wrinkles across her forehead and marred her cheeks and chin in a permanent frown. Draco could not remember the last time she had smiled. His mother looked beautiful when she smiled.

Narcissa grabbed his hand subtly in greeting and offered him a gentle squeeze. The bones of her hand felt as fine and delicate as a bird's, the skin almost translucent and papery.

Now that the Dark Lord had taken the Ministry and Hogwarts, any hope of his reign ending had been squashed violently within Draco. He did not know how much more of this his mother could take.

"How are you?" His mother whispered.

"I'm okay, Mum," Draco replied, "Do you know why we are meeting?" He glanced at his father who had been vacantly staring at their interaction. His father looked away rather than answer Draco's question.

"I'm not sure sweetheart," Narcissa said softly, her eyes softening as they scanned Draco's face. "Have you eaten today?"

Draco sighed, "No, have you?" His mother looked down at the floor; he had already known the answer. "Can we dine together in your room later?"

Before his mother could respond, Lord Voldemort stood, and a hush fell over the crowd as everyone's attention turned to him. With arms outstretched, he gestured to his death eaters, "My family," he said graciously, "we have had much to celebrate over the last few days, don't we?"

The crowd cheered and clapped raucously, his more ardent supporters going as far as shooting sparks towards the ceiling with their wands; Draco and his family clapped politely from the back.

Voldemort soaked up the attention, "The Ministry… Hogwarts… We have taken the two most powerful institutions in Wizarding Europe!" The cheering was amplified by the echoes off the frescoed ballroom ceiling. Gazing upwards, Draco studied the carefully painted constellations. The stars over Draco's head were the only things that ever remained untouched by the terrible scenes that occurred beneath them. He pushed away the wave of overwhelming grief and returned his attention to the spectacle before him.

"But our fight is not over," the Dark Lord cried out, "The Order of the Phoenix still exists, hiding."

Shouts of 'cowards,' scum,' 'mudbloods' and 'blood traitors' rang out as the crowd reduced to angry murmurs before again falling silent.

"We have destroyed over half their force, and the time is now to exterminate the rest of them like the vermin they are." Bellatrix's insane cackle could be distinguished from the responding bellows and thunder of hundreds of feet stomping on the marble floor. The anxiety within Draco intensified.

"We've extracted some information," Voldemort continued, "and now they'll have nowhere to hide. You'll be split into squadrons and sent to eliminate them." Voldemort smiled evilly with his fang-like teeth on full display. "We've found their safehouses."

The crowd roared with approval while Draco felt his heart sink even further. His mother squeezed his hand tightly, and Draco thought with despair, when will this nightmare end?

"Oh Mother, tell your children

Not to do what I have done

Spend your lives in sin and misery

In the House of the Rising Sun."

Lyrics from House of the Rising Sun by The Animals