Thestral

Thestral

He hated this - he hated that Potter had reduced his proud, powerful father into going into hiding. He hated that he had to support Narcissa's act of the weak, grieving, disillusioned wife who still believed her infamous husband was innocent.

But Draco knew it was a fool who called his mother weak. Irritating yes, petty certainly, but not weak. At least not where his father was concerned.

The Manor had, over the centuries, learned to accommodate its Master. If a Ministry official decided that a surprise search was necessary, Lucius' office simply didn't exist. The room was swallowed, as was the man sitting, writing behind his desk, listening to his wife's grief-filled (and terribly fake) wailing. If Narcissa's staged hysterics weren't enough to drive the Aurors away, the fact that there was no evidence of Lucius Malfoy's presence was.

It had been a hard summer, the hardest he had experienced. Draco remembered Potter's taunts about his imprisoned father at the end of fifth year. How would he know what it was like to have a father, anyway? What did he know about anything? He couldn't even begin to imagine the dangers that joining Voldemort's ranks meant. The constant, nauseating fear. The pressure.

Draco had been Marked the night Voldemort had broken his Death Eaters out of Azkaban. It had been a relatively easy task with only wizards guarding the island. He remembered the evening before with a peculiar kind of resignation.

***

The sun was just dipping low in the horizon when the Manor's front doors had rattled on their hinges from the force of three ominous knocks.

Narcissa's head snapped up from the catalogue she had been perusing; Draco dropped his knife with a clatter that he remembered being far too loud for the silent room. They stared at each other, for once mutual in their feelings of disbelief.

No one ever entered the Manor through the front doors other than...other than its Master.

Draco's heart was thumping in his chest. He mouthed wordlessly for a moment before shakily standing up, feeling vaguely surprised that his legs supported him.

It all felt so...surreal, as though events were being sifted from a long, long way away. Three knocks ad his whole body was trembling, throat dry as parchment.

Narcissa spoke: "That's not Lucius."

Her input was unnecessary. He knew, somehow without knowing, that this was not his father. Why was there no house-elf answering the door? Why was Narcissa suddenly looking slightly intoxicated, as though all of her wildest dreams had come true? She knew it was not Lucius, just like Draco knew, so why-

BANG!

The deafening sound of splintering wood echoed down the hallway, followed by a bone-jarring thump. Draco stared at the closed door at the far end of the dining room and watched, wide-eyed, as a light the colour of congealing blood filtered around the edge of the door, leaving it shrouded in a bloody mist. The vapour billowed aimlessly for a moment before swirling, creating a whirlpool-like vortex. Draco's legs gave way as the mist tumbled - dying Autumn leaves shaping, moulding themselves into a tall, skeletal, barely substantial shape. Red eyes glowed briefly, like the last remnants of a sunset, before the last of the mist settled on the figure's surface, sinking into its bone-white skin and looking suddenly, terrifyingly solid.

Draco heard himself gurgle incoherently and gripped the chair's arms painfully tight. Narcissa, meanwhile, had knocked over her chair in her hurry to get to the apparition that his father had described to him so very many times during his fifth year. How to act, what to say, what not to say...

But all of this was forgotten as he watched Narcissa skid to a most ungraceful stop, barely feet from the Dark Lord, and drop to her knees, bowing her head so that a curtain of her pale hair veiled her face.

"I am your loyal servant, my Lord," she intoned reverently, and kissed the hem of his robe. Draco stared. Never had Narcissa been so subservient, not even to his father.

The Dark Lord's thin lips twitched upwards into an unpleasant smile. He placed a gloved hand just above Narcissa's bowed head. "Rise, my Narcissus." She did so and the Dark Lord's glowing eyes immediately slid past her, to the other end of the room where Draco sat. His blood froze.

"And this is your son."

Draco felt a hard shudder run down his spine and he couldn't think, couldn't feel, couldn't breathe. The Dark Lord's eyes gave him an appraising look and he said, "What, young Malfoy? Do I not deserve your well-bred manners that your father has so often told me about?"

At the mention of his father, the instructions that had been drilled into him throughout the year flooded into his head.

"Always bow when you first meet the Dark Lord, Draco. First impressions are what he makes best. Never contradict the Dark Lord outright, Draco, and, whatever you do, do not mention the Potter boy's name."

Shivering, Draco rose to his feet and walked wordlessly down the length of the room, sure that he was going to collapse at any moment. A tight knot of fear had lodged itself in his chest, and he tried to calm his breathing unsuccessfully.

I've been waiting for this day, he thought, furiously trying to quash the cold panic that seeped through him. I've been waiting for this moment, waiting and waiting...

He dropped to his knees beside his mother, hating the awkward movement that made the heat rise in his face while his mother offered him up to the Dark Lord's cause.

***

That night Draco had been Marked, terrified and trembling on the floor of his elegant dining room.

That night Draco had joined the Death Eaters in his first raid - it was of Azkaban.

That night he had got his father back and, for the first time, saw his life-long role model bow and scrape to another being.

That night his world turned upside down, the burning Dark Mark keeping him from sleep as he stared out of his bedroom window.

That night Draco had seen his first Thestral as it cantered across the Manor's grounds, moonlight reflecting off its dark, dark coat.