Darling

Author's Note: I would like to thank Michelle and Amanda, dedicated reader and beta respectively. I've been meaning to write this for a while, so thanks to the creators of NaNoWriMo, for giving me an excuse.

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Draco Malfoy was having the worst summer ever. Worse than that summer in Paris with Father's old chums who drank too much and went around setting Muggle things on fire for fun. Worse, even, than the most recent summer when his father'd been shipped off to Azkaban for that Department of Mysteries debacle, leaving him and his mother to fend for themselves in the tangled web of being Death Eater hangers-on. Of course, he was a hanger-on no more; they'd taken care of that. He was a Death Eater, in it for the long haul, taking on the responsibility of being the man of the house at a respectable sixteen years of age. He looked around the supper table warily, scratching at the enchanted tattoo under the stiff fabric of his expensive pressed linen shirt.

"Don't fidget, Draco dear," his mother murmured distractedly, patting his arm.

"Yes, Mother," he replied dutifully, feeling dull. The Dark Lord had been staying with them, and he required ... attention. Draco was, if not accomplished in the traditional sense, a competently down and dirty Occlumens, thanks to his aunt. And the Dark Lord wasn't particularly attractive or beholden to certain standards of hygiene; it took a lot of effort to put up those walls and partition off Draco's disgust, lest he be tarred and feathered for not worshipping at his feet the way the older members of the club did. They'd had years to be awed by him, and he probably hadn't looked like some weird flat-nosed creep back then. Now, though - Draco glanced up to his father's chair at the head of the table, where the flat-nosed creep sat like he owned the place. He didn't! He didn't. Draco gripped the table cloth under the table and looked away again hastily. Disgusting, but oh so powerful. He saw it in the regal way the creature that was the Dark Lord sat, surveying all of his lands and slaves.

It was power Draco would have wanted, once. Still did, honestly, but not with all the work that was apparently involved. He was getting a headache.

"Draco dear," his mother murmured again, glancing up at the head of the table nervously. "Do keep your head." There was a hint of threat behind those words, and it pained him to hear it. She'd taken over Father's sternness in his absence and Draco didn't like it a bit.

"Apologies, Mother," he demurred, suitably chagrined. "I'm not feeling particularly well."

Narcissa Malfoy's brow creased and she patted his arm again. "Have you taken your

tonic today?"

Draco shook his head shortly and looked into his lap. "I... I forgot," he lied. His mother never could tell when he lied. Right on cue, his nervous stomach caught up with him and he swallowed hard, once. She was a delicate, fragile woman, but she was still a mother, so she wasted no time sensing impending disaster. While Draco fought off nausea and the fuzzy feeling of his skin getting far too warm in anticipation of a horrible embarrassing bout of sickness, he was dimly aware of her fluttering hands over his forehead and pleading voice. That alone made his stomach twist - that his beautiful mother had to beg for the privilege of minding her own son. Draco squeezed his eyes shut as the world gave a playful little spin. He clutched at her hand and a moment later, felt himself getting hoisted to his feet.

"Get some rest, Draco," she commanded softly, swiping a kiss over his clammy forehead. He nodded, and her hand slipped out of his as one of the Dark Lord's henchmen wheeled him out of the room by way of a ham-sized fist around his upper arm. He grunted a little at the fast movement, but only got shaken in response to his complaint, which didn't help one little bit. As the dining room doors swung shut after them, he heard the Dark Lord's low, hissing voice say something made incomprehensible by distance, followed by laughter around the room.

Sorry Mother.

"Wake up, kid." The henchman shook him again and Draco bit back a groan, pulling them both to a full stop in order to get his stomach under orders. When he glanced up, he nearly lost it completely, but managed instead to wrench his arm out of Fenrir Greyback's grasp and back away a step. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and looked away, heaving great breaths. God, Greyback was disgusting. The werewolf grinned, well, wolfishly. "Usually I have to talk about eating babies or something to get a reaction like that, Drakey-kins," he growled, taking a step toward him.

Draco felt the blood drain from his face. If he'd known then - and now - Get a grip! He backed up another step and ended up with his back against the hallway wall. "I don't need a minder," he spat, making to move past and leave the werewolf behind.

Greyback chuckled darkly and came after him, draping a heavy arm over the tall teen's shoulders and pulling him close like a chummy friend. Draco stumbled with the surprise and immediate proximity of diseased breath and disregarded cleanliness. Greyback kept him standing until he got his feet back under him, which was small relief. As embarrassed as he might have been to fall on his arse in his own home, far worse was the notion of being close personal friends with the fiendish werewolf who bragged about eating children. "Let's just say, you aren't exactly trusted."

Draco gulped involuntarily. His failure on the tower - it had planted seeds of doubt among the other death eaters. People who couldn't be trusted often ended up dead in their sort of company. "Fine," he said, ducking out of Greyback's one armed embrace. "Let's just go."

Greyback chuckled again and followed after him all the way up the spiral staircase, past the gaudy gilt serpent statue on the landing, past Father's trophy room - Draco suppressed a shudder of guilt and shame at having failed to take on the responsibilities of the man of the manor - and to the end of the east wing corridor, where his rooms were. Draco wobbled realistically, exaggerating his health only a little while Greyback watched -

And then followed him into the little sitting room ante-chamber of his bedroom. Draco turned and frowned. "Was there something else, Mister Greyback," he sneered, feeling a little more like himself.

Greyback stalked around the room and picked at his teeth while he pawed through Draco's personal effects. "Just figured I'd make sure the little lamb is quite all right before tottering back to the dreadfully boring grownups," he replied sweetly.

Draco swallowed his response and stalked into his bedroom, through that and straight into his private lavatory, where he loosed his tie and splashed cool water on his face. Greyback was visible in the mirror, sorting through his top dresser drawer behind him in the bedroom. The cool water wasn't helping. He didn't have to fake feeling sick; his face looked unprettily haggard, pale and drawn. The Dark Lord had to know - but he couldn't, if he wanted to keep his mother alive. God, oh God...

And a moment later, his knees hit the plush bathroom mat with a thud and he was leaning over the toilet bowl, dry heaving. He must have cried out or whimpered or something, because Fenrir Greyback was at the door in an instant, looking unsettlingly excited.

"Make yourself useful," Draco bit out, squeezing his eyes shut against the headache sickness caused. "Fetch my tonic."

"Your wish is my command, Young Malfoy," Greyback growled unkindly.

It'd be too late, Draco thought. Even if he drank it now, not enough time to prevent him being sick. Which was fine. Because it meant he'd be spared another supper with their Company. And even as he thought on it with satisfaction, the moment came and he threw up into the toilet, heaving and crying without meaning to, the taste of bile and blood in his mouth. The Medi-Witch had said "ulcer, from stress," while she gave him and his mother the hairy eyeball for the crime of being Malfoys, and prescribed him a tonic to take twice a day. It hadn't taken him long to discover that the second dose had to come before dinner, or there would be disastrous consequences.

"Here," Greyback said gruffly, leaning over slightly to see Draco's alibi for himself. He sniffed reproachfully, a delicate gesture which a healthier Draco would have mocked on a hulking mass that disgusting. "Coming back down?"

"No, I don't think so," Draco mumbled, leaning his cheek against the cool porcelain seat, limply accepting the little bottle with his tonic in it.

"Fine." Greyback stepped away, but a moment later, his gross head was back in the doorway. "You'd think Lucius Malfoy's son would have a stronger stomach," he suggested. "Or maybe you take after your mother. Pretty."

He was gone before Draco could get the energy to launch himself at the werewolf's throat. Greyback could have taken several weeks to leave and still have managed to do it before Draco mustered that much bluster, but still. That he left half a second after saying it left Draco feeling like he really would have leapt to his mother's defence if only given a couple more seconds to do it in. He sighed heavily and stayed where he was, head lolling against the nice, cool porcelain, tonic bottle rolling from lax fingers onto and across the floor.

Throwing up always made him feel worse, sicker. From embarrassment, from shame, from dread that his father would find out. For the most part, though, he'd been a child with generic child illnesses, and then he'd been older and fine for years. When the final events of his sixth year came to fruition and vomit finally brought up pink, his mum had got worried rather than embarrassed, although she still didn't call their family physician and had trusted some... common Medi-Witch to tend him. She loved him, he'd told himself then. Just didn't want to take chances. Just didn't want to give anyone the opportunity to - while they were in limbo, because of his actions, because of his father's failure, because... Because she was embarrassed and hoped no one would recognise them under the minor glamour she'd effected.

Draco dragged himself out of the lavatory after a couple more bouts of the dry heaves brought up nothing. He snagged his tonic and downed a swallow without measuring, then tottered into his room and stripped to nothing, thinking over his options. Life was so different with all of these "family friends" over all the time. When Father was home and they lived alone on their Manor, life was predictable, for the most part. He knew when he'd be summoned for appointments - tutors, assignations - or when dinner was, or when he was expected to do things without being asked, or even which things he could skive off of without being punished. But Father was in Azkaban, and the Dark Lord was sitting in his seat at dinner, laughing at his mother when he couldn't sit down to dinner without getting sick.

So... he was supposed to be resting. No one could complain if he changed into pyjamas and slipped into bed. Even if he were summoned again, it would be all right. The house elves couldn't always be trusted to know the state of affairs, but he chose to think they knew what they were doing when he found that his favourite black silk pyjama bottoms had been laid out on the bed with a comfortable tee shirt.

He was half asleep when a weight settled on his bed next to him. He groaned irritably when a hand cupped his cheek.

"Shh, my darling," his mother murmured.

Draco blinked himself fully awake and recognized her by the halo of long blonde hair backlit by the moonlight through his window. "Mother?" he whispered. Then, in wide awake panic:

"What's happened? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, darling," she said, sounding dreamy. "I'm sorry to wake you up like this."

She sounded sad. Draco frowned. "Don't apologize, Mother," he murmured, flushing in embarrassment. "It doesn't suit you."

She smiled at him and smoothed his hair over his ear. "Draco..."

Draco swallowed, feeling dread twist in his stomach. "M-mum?"

"Your father's escaped from Azkaban."

Draco's mouth went dry. "Escaped?" he said, more timidly than he'd meant to. Escaped, past tense, not escaped and failed and was killed. Not escaped and was recaptured. Escaped. He was elated and terrified at the same time. His mother knew it.

"Don't worry, darling," she said. He hated when she said Darling so often; it meant she was softening the blow to come.

"What's wrong then?"

She frowned, lines creasing on her face. She was older than he was used to imagining her, age etched into her face by the trials of these last couple of years. God, he thought uncharitably, I hope I age better than that. "Your father's a good man," she started hesitantly. "When he comes back..."

Light dawned slowly through Draco's sleep-fuzzed brain. "He'll be changed," he finished for her. "We can deal with it." He tried to sound reassuring. "Everything'll be fine, mum. I'll take care of it."

"He wasn't always..." she began again, and Draco furrowed his brows.

"It's okay." What was okay, he didn't know yet. There was something sinister in her voice and he didn't like it.

"It isn't," she said, nearly pleading with him. In the moonlight, he saw the glitter of tears in her eyes and sat up.

"Mum, what's wrong. Stop talking around everything."

"Never you mind, darling," she said, backing off in response to the fervour in his voice. He grabbed her arm when she said "darling" again and she looked at him with wide eyes. When did he become a violent son? God. He pulled his hand away hastily and dropped it into his lap, ashamed.

"What's going to happen?" he muttered.

"Nothing," she soothed. "Everything's all right. When your father comes home..."

When Father comes home, nothing will be all right, he didn't say. She didn't add, Everything will be different, and he'll be a different person, maddened by his time in Azkaban. He didn't nod sadly and agree, saying, He'll be worse, won't he? He didn't throw his arms around his mother's neck and weep into her bosom like a four year old. She didn't rub his back and shush him and reassure him that they'd be okay, that his failures wouldn't be held against him.

Instead, they sat there in the moonlight, son like mother, both pale and white-blond and worried and quiet, for another twenty minutes before she leaned forward to kiss his forehead. "Keep your health a secret, darling," she murmured. "Father won't be pleased."

"Yes, Mother," he agreed dully.