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Draco found himself in a large hallway, dimly lit, sumptuously decorated, with a magnificent carpet covering most of the stone floor - Malfoy Manor. A place he had once considered home, but by now he had too many negative memories connected to it to feel at peace in it. Instead he felt melancholic, remembering all that he had lost over the years. The melancholy was mixed with anger - directed at himself - and also the feeling of being trapped. The thick stonewalls that once promised protection from the outside, now only kept him from escaping everything rotten that was on the inside.

His mind was unable to conjure up any positive memories, although he knew that there should be at least some. But it was hard to think of how he had excitedly run in circles on this carpet when he had received his first broom, when thoughts of bloody and broken bodies being dragged over that very same carpet were so much more recent. It was hard to think of the happy times he had spent there with his wife, when he also remembered how she died and that particular memory, that pain, was so strong, so overwhelming. And when he tried to picture happy moments with his parents, he could only think of the morning they rejected him.

His head perked up as the front door swung inward at the approach of a person, and Draco felt a heavy weight settle on his chest when he saw who that person was: Scorpius Malfoy. His son.

"I am back," Scorpius announced, but it sounded uncertain. "Albus' dad let me use their Floo..." Scorpius fell quiet, scanning the dark hallway, looking right through Draco. "Dad?" When no reaction came, Scorpius called out for him again, his brows creasing in worry. When he was again met with silence, Scorpius went towards the drawing room, then to the dining room, and then into every other room in the building, calling out for his father.

He looked small and lost. A scared child. Abandoned by both of his parents.

One couldn't say that Draco's heart ached when he woke up, for he felt like he did not have one anymore, like it had been ripped out of his chest, and now there was a burning hole that threatened to consume him with the longing it felt for its missing part. Breathing was difficult, his eyes were burning, and he pulled his knees close to his chest, wrapping his arms around them to anchor himself. He closed his eyes, trying to control his erratic breathing, clearing his mind as best as he could.

There was no use in dwelling on the guilt, the longing, the sadness. Better to squash them down. There was nothing he could do about it. Occlude, calm down, and carry on.

When he pulled the curtain of his four-poster bed aside, he should have been pleasantly surprised that no one had tried to enter his dorm room during the night. After all, that's what he had expected after the confrontation with his housemates the previous day. But he only felt empty and drained, as if he hadn't slept at all.

He dragged himself to the Great Hall for breakfast. A livid discussion was going on at the Slytherin table, and angry yelling could be heard all through the hall. As soon as the students at the table noticed Draco, however, all fighting ceased. The sound level turned eerily quiet as Draco sat down next to his friends, who for the first time in a long while, were not sitting alone at their end of the table.

Nowhere was the shift in the Slytherin dynamics as obvious as at their table in the Great Hall. They were no united front anymore. Many students were no longer sitting next to their friends as trust and friendship had greatly suffered. Lines were being drawn and sides chosen and the whole of Slytherin had no idea how to deal with a house divided.

The perpetrators from the day before were also among those sitting on their own. Apparently, being beaten with ease by a single opponent, several years younger than them, had cost them much of their reputation.

But Draco could hardly bring himself to notice, let alone care for, what was going on around him. He let Theo and Daphne do the talking. They seemed to enjoy the modicum of popularity they had reacquired after being shunned for so long. Draco, meanwhile just poked his porridge with his fork, hardly eating anything. His friends sent him worried glances but did not ask him about his strange behavior.

His mood went further downhill when the Daily Prophet arrived. The Great Hall had suddenly grown as unusually quiet as the Slytherin table. Draco would have skipped the newspaper altogether that day, but the eerie atmosphere made him curious enough to grab a copy.

MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN read the headline. With an uneasy feeling, he began to read the article.

The Ministry of Magic announced late last night that there has been a mass breakout from Azkaban. Speaking to reporters in his private office, Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, confirmed that ten high-security prisoners escaped in the early hours of yesterday evening, and that he has already informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the dangerous nature of these individuals...

Halfway through the article, Draco pushed the offending paper away from him and buried his head in his hands. Things were speeding along now. Voldemort and his followers were impatient and not sticking to the original timeline. And they were stronger than they were originally. Aunt Bellatrix was probably already back at her master's side, or at least by the side of the shadow that he still was, making everyone's lives more difficult.

Abandoning his half-eaten porridge, Draco decided that he would just go back to bed and skip classes. But as soon as he had left the Great Hall, he was cornered by three all too familiar Gryffindors.

"May I help you?" Draco asked once it became clear there was no easy way to avoid them.

"Where's Neville?" Ron, ever the bold and straight-forward Gryffindor, asked.

"How would I know? I'm not his babysitter," Draco growled.

Ron glowered at him. Hadn't they already moved past this?

"We worry about him," Hermione said. "He did not return with the others and there... are rumors."

"Just send him a letter. I'm sure he'll tell you everything you want to know." Draco turned to walk away, but they just refused to get out of the way.

"You and he both disappeared over the break, and no one has seen you on the train," Harry said. "And there are rumors about you as well."

"I haven't heard any rumors," Draco replied, "but I assume they are all true."

Hermione opened her mouth, but then closed it again without a sound escaping.

"So, your parents kicked you out?" Weasley finally asked to break the awkward silence. His utterance was followed by an elbow to the side coming from Hermione.

Draco flinched, but then nodded. If they knew, then the whole school knew as well.

The trio seemed a lot less confrontational now.

"I-I'm sorry," Weasley managed to mutter. The others nodded their heads in agreement.

"Listen," Draco sighed, "I really don't want to talk about it. Neville is fine. Better than fine, even. He's with his parents. I'm sure he'll be back soon. Maybe in a week or two."

Hermione studied Draco, her expression guarded. "Were they - his parents - the patients that have been kidnapped out of St. Mungo's?"

Draco just stared at her, open-mouthed, before he slowly nodded. "Kidnapped is a strong word. Neville and his grandmother decided that they were well enough to leave the hospital. The healers did not agree."

Hermione shook her head.

"We never knew... He never told us," Harry said, "that anything was wrong with his parents."

"But you knew that he lived with his grandmother?" Draco asked. "Did you never wonder why?"

Judging by the way the trio looked at each other guiltily, they probably hadn't.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Hermione finally asked.

Draco looked at them. They were good kids, he reminded himself. Draco was being unnecessarily harsh to them. But he really just wanted to be left alone. "When the time comes," he finally said, "win."

That was the only thing he really wanted from them. For them to beat Voldemort, so Draco and the people he loved could live in peace.

Draco went back to his dormitory and back to bed. There he stayed until Theo joined him a few hours later.

"Hey there. Everything alright?" Theo asked while he pushed the curtains of Draco's bed aside. "I haven't seen you since breakfast."

"Nothing I won't survive," Draco said, sitting up. "Things just don't seem to be going my way lately."

"Really?" asked Theo. "Seems to me like just this Easter you achieved something so fantastic you should be awarded with an Order of Merlin. Second class, at least. Maybe first. And then – and I realize this might only be rumors – I heard that you single-handedly wiped the floor with a bunch of stuck-up upper years."

Draco laughed, feeling better already. "Well, if you put it like that."

Theo sat down on the bed next to Draco, looking more serious. "I know how you feel. How it feels to get rejected by those who are supposed to love you no matter what. You might tell yourself that you knew it was coming and that it was inevitable – that's what I did, at least – and, I guess, it really was, but it doesn't make it hurt any less."

"Does it get better?" Draco asked, fearing the answer. He missed his son so much still, he could not imagine the feeling of rejection would age any better.

"Not really," Theo admitted. "But you learn to live with it. And you learn that just because your family doesn't care, doesn't mean that no one does. I know they always say that family and blood are more important than anything else. But I think that friendship's pretty great as well."

Draco looked at Theo. "Do you sometimes feel guilty? Like you failed your family and should have done things differently?" And oh was this close to the truth.

"Who doesn't? Unfortunately, we can't change the past," laughed Theo and Draco laughed along. "But I'd rather be alone and fighting for what I think is right than be loved for being someone I am not."

That was, Draco knew, not entirely true. Theo had originally chosen to keep his thoughts to himself. Without the new friendships this timeline had forged, he probably would have again. That, of course, did not make what he said any less true. Even knowing that everything would turn out more or less alright, he could have never just repeated what had happened the first time he lived through all of this. Not even to save the relationship with his parents. He was not the same person he was back then. And he was changing things for the better. His son would be born again and one day lead a better life than he had. He would never know what his father had done.

"I know you had a tough week," Theo's voice cut through Draco's musing and pulled him out of his thoughts back into the real world, "but your friends and your girlfriend haven't seen you in forever and would really be delighted if you spent some time with them. Helps with the mood as well, trust me on this one."

Draco smiled and got up. "Alright," he said. He had missed them as well. How did he ever survive without them, he wondered, while they made their way to the Room of Requirement.

TBC

A.N.: I am back and about as motivated as one can be at the beginning of a new year. I will definitely finish this story before 2020. Anyone else have any new year resolutions related to writing? Let me know in a review. Also let me know how you liked this chapter. There'll only be one or two more chapters covering the school year and then we'll tackle the last task of the Triwizard Tournament.