Deeper Than Blood

Chapter Three: Bound and Scarred

Help me carry on

Show me it's okay to

Use my heart and not my eyes

To navigate the darkness

-Crawling in the Dark, Hoobastank

Bound.

It was a terrifying thought, yet one he could not avoid. Draco Malfoy could not call himself aloof and alone anymore-he was bound to his very soul. His words had bound him to the Order of Phoenix, his soul had bound him to the Soul Book, and on his seventeenth birthday, a mark would bind him to a league of death and pain. And, in some way he could never hope to perceive, he was bound to Ginny Weasley.

On the day of the Leaving Feast, Draco woke early from another nightmare that covered him in sweat and renewed his healthily growing fear. Knowing that it would be hours before any of his roommates would wake up, he pulled on his normal school robe over his pajamas and padded out. After the incident with his highly expensive Quidditch jersey, Draco had put much more consideration in his bedtime attire. As of late, he had taken to wearing shirts that he would not mind being torn up to bed. Today, his shirt read "Puddlemere United Seeker" and his shorts were covered in little golden Snitches. His mother had bought him the shorts on another bout of sickening motherliness, but some part of his conscience nagged him to wear them occasionally. He doubted that anybody (but Ginny) would be awake to see his attire, so he did not care.

His nightmare the night before had been an awful one, a repeat of the nightmare he had experienced several times before. Always, Draco woke up with the slimy hands upon his neck, washing his very soul with cold. The Death Devourer, for that was what had caused the sickeningly slimy sensation, had probably been Lucius's idea. Death Devourers were just that-they ate sickness away from people, and it, in turn, made them hideous to look at and horrible to be touched by. Somehow, Lucius had figured out about Draco's phobia of sick and dying people, so the Death Devourer was only another thing brought on to torture the young Malfoy heir.

Although he normally read the book Professor Snape had given him in the morning, he surpassed that this morning. He arrived at the door to the Prefect's Bathroom in a state hovering between wakefulness and exhaustion. If Ginny saw this, she would chide him and send him back to bed, he was sure. Carefully, he composed himself, smoothing out the lines of his T-shirt, straightening his shoulders, calming his sleep-rumpled hair. Once he was certain he would pass inspection, he said the password.

And opened the door to find himself in the midst of a party going on, full swing.

It was one thing to walk in and see Ginny Weasley surrounded by a pillow of churning water as she made rapid cuts across the pool. It was quite another to see Ron Weasley bellowing across the room to Harry Potter as they tossed a ball back and forth between them over the heads of other partygoers. Draco's lip curled as his eyes roamed over the lot of people in the pool; there was not a prefect in sight. Was this Potter and Weasley's little plan, cooked up to scare Ginny away from him? It had to be. Would they really stoop that low?

A determined gleam in his eye, he walked over to the stereo (obviously charmed to play at Hogwarts) and broke it in half with an audible snap.

For a moment, the room was deathly silent, the only sounds those of the water lapping against the sides of the pool. Then Ron Weasley's eyes nearly exploded out of his head and he shouted, "Malfoy! You-"

Draco was not about to let him finish his sentence. He waved his wand at the stereo irritably and repaired it before snapping it across the room with a simple Banishing spell. "Anybody care to tell me what's going on here?" he demanded in a cool voice, eyes roving to each partygoer's. He did not receive the insane pleasure that had once come upon seeing utter fear in the eyes of the Hufflepuffs and complete loathing from the Gryffindors.

"Surely you must know a party when you see one, Malfoy," Potter said coldly.

The game of cat-and-mouse had come alive again, Draco noted as he smirked, leaning casually against the wall. He could have been wearing a tutu and still have commanded as much respect as he would have in formal robes. The fact that he wore Snitches on his shorts did not lessen the confidence in his air, nor the respect he demanded. "Yes, I would, actually. Very astute of you to observe that, Potter." The smirk disappeared from his face as if it had not been there at all. "I also know how to recognize a ruse when I see one, as well. Do you think you're mighty clever, working it so that Ginny can't have the pool at this hour?"

"Yes," Weasley said stonily. The other people in the pool had started to stray to the edges of the pool, but Weasley and Potter stood their ground.

Draco's eyebrow lifted in the slightest challenge. Trust Gryffindors to be painfully straightforward. "And not a prefect among you, I notice. Fancy telling me how you got in here?" When nobody voiced explanations, he removed his lanky form from the wall and paced casually. "Now, the rules state that I am allowed to take five to ten points from each person I catch breaking a rule, depending on the severity of the rule. Now, I would say that trespassing is a pretty severe crime, so that would wager around nine points from each of you. Wouldn't you agree?" His caustic grin landed on Potter now, who was turning almost as red as Weasley was.

"McGonagall wouldn't let you get away with taking so many points," Potter said, sounding quite sure of himself.

"Oh, but Harry, Harry, Harry," Draco purred, excitement spurring a sadistic grin onto his face. "You forget--it's written quite clearly in the rules. McGonagall may be strict, but she's fair. I give her a logical explanation--and I cannot tell a lie, my friends--and she will believe me. I count eight Gryffindors and three Hufflepuffs. That's seventy-two points from Gryffindor and twenty-seven from Hufflepuff, isn't it?"

Weasley was turning a much deeper shade of red now, much to Draco's delight. "You stay away from my sister, Malfoy!" He held the ball like a Quaffle, readying to chuck it at Draco's head.

Knowing that he had just entered dangerous territory, Draco slowly turned his head to look at Weasley. "Temper, Weasley. This has nothing to do with your sister, worry you not. I just enjoy keeping the rights earned by being better students than you to those who have earned them." He was now officially tired of these people-time to sign the checks and close the case. His poker face slid into place. "If you leave now, however, I will only take twenty points from Gryffindor and five from Hufflepuff. If you choose to stay, I will take the amounts I told you earlier."

The party was officially over. The Hufflepuffs left first, not willing to lose any more than five points. Most gave him angry looks as they passed him, but Draco really did not care. Reputation with the Hufflepuffs really did not matter to him. He watched in triumph as the Gryffindors slowly slunk out with their tails between their legs. Potter and Weasley left last, after having retrieved Weasley's stereo. Weasley paused for a full moment at the door to glare at Draco, who gazed back in an unaffected manner. "Better not tell your girlfriend, Weasley," Draco warned, a grin barely tugging at the corners of his mouth. "She might take points as well."

With a sour look to rival any look Draco had received in his life, Weasley stormed out. Potter glared at him hatefully before he pushed past Draco.

"And it's Malfoy one, Potter zero," Draco muttered under his breath. Now that the people were gone, he allowed a furious look to cross his face. They had done this, this seizing of the pool, on purpose. Did they not realize that swimming was the only thing keeping Ginny Weasley from falling apart? Even though his conversations with Ginny numbered to a little more than a handful, Draco had seen enough to realize that Ginny Weasley kept more under the surface than the rest of her family. Were Potter and Weasley that thick? Were they purposely out to hurt her?

Shaking his head in frustration, Draco decided that yes, stupid people like Potter and Weasley really were that stupid. With that revelation in mind, Draco went to change the point scores for Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Maybe he would take just a little more than he had told them he would take. He was still a Slytherin, after all, and weren't Slytherins notorious for breaking their word?

He hoped Ginny would be there when he got back.

*

"I can't believe him, that bloody idiot," Harry grumbled to his best friends. He received an admonishing look from Hermione about his language, but he ignored it and continued complaining. "I can't believe he had the audacity to take points from us like that! It was just a party, for crying out loud!"

He had said the wrong thing, for Hermione turned a very abrupt and angry shade of red. "And I can't believe you had the audacity to do that to Ginny!" she snapped, leveling them with an incredibly furious look. Both Ron and Harry jumped; they had expected Hermione to take their side in this argument. "She's tried so hard not to rub this friendship with Malfoy in your face, Ron, and you deliberately provoke her! I'm surprised the poor girl didn't run off crying when she came in!" The three were enjoying an early breakfast while most of the rest of the school (except the partygoers scattered about the Great Hall) slumbered in peace.

Being male, Harry and Ron were required to scramble to fix the broken egos that Hermione had not-so-delicately smashed. However, Ron just gaped open-mouthed at their friend, instead of coming up with some defense. Always the hero, Harry jumped to the rescue. "She didn't run away crying. And besides, it was for her own good," he argued, pointing his fork at Hermione.

"For her own good?" Hermione repeated, her voice rising in pitch. Harry furtively glanced around and realized that they had attracted the attention of every person in the Great Hall, including (much to his embarrassment) his latest crush. "For her own good? Harry, you great fool, can't you just leave the poor girl alone? I don't care if you think it's for her own good-it's destroying her and it's as cruel as a Slytherin! She's done nothing to you, and yet you constantly follow her and destroy her life!"

Harry did not like being called a fool any more than Ron liked being compared to a Slytherin. Ron, for the second time that day, turned ruddy and protested loudly at this remark. "Destroying her? We're keeping her from that-that prat! Doesn't know what she wants, always hanging about with Slytherins and shifty types!" He slammed his fist into the table to prove his point and only succeeded in knocking over Harry's pumpkin juice. The boy hero scrambled to get out of the way of the impeding juice.

"Ron," Hermione said in a very soft and equally dangerous voice, "Ginny is nearly sixteen. I think she has some inkling of what she wants. What she wants is neither your choice to make, nor is it your place to criticize. If she wants to be friends with Draco Malfoy, let her be! She'll realize her mistakes in time." She gave an aggravated sigh, seeing that Harry's battle with the pumpkin juice was, well, fruitless, and waved her wand. Instantly, the juice evaporated, leaving the boy hero clean and embarrassed. "Now eat your toast like a good boy. We still need to see Dumbledore about our summer assignments and I'm positive you two haven't packed."

"Why does she always get the last word?" Ron grumbled to Harry as he picked up his toast and obediently took a bite.

*

Draco was grateful to see that Ginny was alone in the Prefect's Bathroom when he arrived back from changing the points tally. He had taken less from Hufflepuff than he originally said he would, but he had taken quite a bit more from Gryffindor. As usual, he left a note (using the quill spelled against lies) explaining why he had taken the points. He was almost positive that quite a few of the guilty students would receive detentions from this if it weren't the day of the Leaving Feast.

Ginny did not notice Draco as he entered, which was not a surprise. On some days, she swam at a leisurely rate, more out of habit than anything. Today, however, she attacked the water as if there was no tomorrow. Her normally languid crawl was a frenzy of flurrying arms and legs and red hair. He sat down to wait at the edge of the pool until Ginny could calm down some. Another trip into the pool to save her life was just not exactly what he needed at the moment.

It was then that he finally realized what was going to happen. Even though he had not really known Ginny for that long, Draco realized that she had become some sort of pedestal, a person he could talk to and not have to watch his every move. In a very short time, he had built a dependence on her, a dependence that could not exist during the summer. During the summer, he was on his own, facing a man who had raised a whip to him and a woman who saw motherhood as a mere role to be played. It was going to be a long two months without seeing Ginny.

Things were going to be different next year when he saw her again. Heck, he realized, if he saw her again. It was very likely that he would be found out as a traitor and killed. If Lucius Malfoy had no qualms about beating his son, there wouldn't be a thing stopping him from saying an Unforgivable Curse on the spot. Draco knew that his father's loyalties were absolute-not even the heir of his every knut could stand between Lucius and true power. It was a sickening reality, and one Draco was slowly getting used to. There was no father-son love in his family, only the slightest respect and a healthy loathing. Draco wondered slightly how long he would live, and if he would even survive the summer.

Would Ginny still be alive, for that matter? Her family was the most prominent family in the Order of Phoenix; Draco had already heard of death-threats and near-escapes involving her older brothers. It was rumored around school that Ron had even survived an encounter with Lord Voldemort (something that had stuffed up his head quite a bit). Draco knew that Ginny was a card-carrying member of the Order of Phoenix, like the rest of her family. She was friends with Muggle-born witches and wizards, thus targeting her even more. The possibility of death and capture existed as strongly for her as it did the others. One Weasley had nearly died, two had escaped, another had faced the Dark Lord himself. Would Ginny be next?

"You're thinking pretty deeply for somebody on the edge of a pool," a voice interrupted his musings. Draco shifted slightly to see Ginny, her hair made crimson by the water, clinging to the edge of the pool a few feet away and smiling at him. She wore her normal swimming clothing-a long-sleeved black shirt and shorts-despite the heat. For a moment, Draco considered asking her why she didn't just buy a bathing suit, and thought better of it. He wasn't sure how well off the Weasleys really were, and he didn't want to start a fight about that now. It was, after all, the day of the Leaving Feast.

"You're swimming pretty hard for somebody in a bathtub," Draco quipped back. Ginny let a squeal of indignation and splashed water at him. To her delight, Draco flinched away and nearly fell in. "That wasn't nice."

"Oh, so I have to be nice to you now?" Ginny mocked. The grin this brought didn't last very long, however, because Draco used his Quidditch reflexes and jumped at her. His momentum, as well as the arm he wrapped around her shoulders, was enough to pull her into the water and succeed in soaking the pair of them. Before Draco could avoid falling in, however, Ginny grabbed his arm and pulled him with her. Draco surfaced before Ginny did, laughing hard enough to turn his face red. A moment later, Ginny resurfaced and offered him an indignant squeak that quickly turned to laughter. Draco pushed his hair out of his eyes and favored her with a mischievous grin.

"That was evil," Ginny commented when the laughter had exhausted itself. "And now look, you're all wet."

"Your fault," Draco coughed out, shaking his head and sending water everywhere. He was up to his lower chest, water dripping off of his nose. "If you hadn't grabbed my arm, I wouldn't have been pulled under."

"If you hadn't jumped at me, you wouldn't have been pulled under," Ginny corrected. Her grin broadened as Draco pulled himself back onto the side of the pool, sloshing water all over the place. The grey T-shirt clung to his skin and offered Ginny a view of well-defined chest muscles. Draco Malfoy definitely worked out, it seemed, and years of Quidditch had refined him considerably. Ginny felt her face growing heat up as he pulled the shirt off and tossed it aside. Before she could turn away, he spotted this and grinned very smugly. "What are you grinning at?"

"You." Draco leaned back in a confident manner, his smirk firmly in place. He crossed his arms, nearly trilling with pleasure when Ginny tried to avoid staring at him. "Never seen a guy with his shirt off before?"

"Who are you kidding? I've seen you in your boxers," Ginny retorted quickly. It was Draco's turn to flush, although he acquired no more than a pink tinge to his cheeks. "And I've got six older brothers, all of whom like to swim. Figure that one out." At Draco's short-lived scowl, she gave her most innocent look. "So, what are you doing down here so early? It's the last day-you should be sleeping."

If she was expecting an answer, she never got it. Draco stood and arched his back like she had seen him do before, preparing to dive. It was then that Ginny saw them.

Seven lines, all faint, all spidery, traced across Draco's shoulders and down along his back. In the dim light of the Prefect's Bathroom, Ginny could barely see them, but she knew with a nauseating burst of insight that these were whip marks. Somebody had taken a whip and had flayed him repeatedly with it. This was no magical spell, this was deliberate and malicious cruelty. Ginny let out a small gasp.

For a long, horribly tense moment, Draco stood there, arched to dive, and stared at her. An infinity later, his eyes traced a painfully slow path from her gaze to his exposed back. The soft, venomous curse hung between them, the only sound. Ginny gaped like a fish about to become the main course.

"Draco, what-" she gushed, eyes wide and frightened that something so awful could happen to him.

She did not get very far into her question, for Draco snapped to a rigid position, his face closed. "No," he interrupted, not moving. "Just no, all right?" When Ginny blinked at him, confused and hurt, he scooped up the sopping T-shirt and shoved that over his head with deliberate force. His hair stuck out wildly, accenting the crazed look in his eyes. "There's a lot you don't know about me. Keep it that way." With that, he stalked out of the bathroom.

Ginny, left alone, could only stare and wonder what had just happened.

*

Blaise Zabini was only on the very fringes of descent into the realm of the awake when Draco Malfoy crashed blindly into the dormitory, soaked through to the bone and looking hideously furious. He did not appear to either notice or care that he was making enough noise to combat a symphony orchestra, nor that his crashes and bangs were waking the sleeping occupants of his dormitory. Crabbe and Goyle, being heavy sleepers, were able to ignore Draco's cacophony of furious clattering, but Blaise was not nearly as adaptable. Grumbling silently, he clambered across his bed to peer through the hangings. "Fancy telling me why you're making such a racket?" he demanded grumpily.

Draco did not even spare him a look. "Bug off."

Blaise's eyes narrowed in suspicion; Draco's clothing was dripping, but he did not smell like lake water. Had the Malfoy heir fallen in? The thought, as amusing as it was, definitely coordinated with the fact that Draco looked incredibly angry. He had stopped moving about the room with the fury of a flock of harpies, but he was making a lot of noise going through his trunk. Blaise watched him in confusion as he withdrew a crystal bottle filled with...whiskey?

He knew that Draco had changed considerably over the past year, so it confused him as to why Draco would actually own a whiskey bottle. He did not think that Draco took alcohol at all-he had certainly turned it down during the infrequent games of poker he took a hand in. So why was Draco drinking at all, if not now of all times?

"Erm, Malfoy, why are you all wet?" Blaise asked hesitantly, emerging completely from the hangings. Apparently, he wasn't going to get any more rest, so why bother trying? Draco shrugged as he uncapped the whiskey bottle and took a long pull that ended with a coughing fit. Once the coughing had passed, he took another swig and coughed again. "Did you hear me?" Blaise continued.

Draco coughed once more, spewing whiskey on his arms and down his front. "I heard," he rasped out, and took yet another swallow. This time he had to sit down, for his legs did not have any hope of supporting him. Blaise sneered inside; Draco Malfoy could not take a drink at all. Still, the young Death Eater hopeful kept going at the bottle. Blaise had to hand it to him; Malfoy did not give up.

"Then why didn't you answer?" Blaise prodded when it was obvious that Draco wasn't going to continue. "It's only polite, you know."

Draco managed to roll his eyes at this response, although the room was already spinning. A maniacal grin came across his face, quickly replaced by a look of puzzled anger at Blaise's questioning. "Bugger off, Zabini. Can't you see I'm trying to get drunk here?" Although he had only taken a little out of the bottle, his words were slurred and he kept nodding his head back and forth. He swung the bottle around so that it splashed all over his hands.

"Trying would be the operative word here." Trusting Draco's drunk state, Blaise quickly reached over and wrenched the bottle from the other boy's grip. "What confuses me is why you're trying to get drunk at eight o'clock in the morning. Most people give it a few more hours before getting drunk."

"Hey!" Draco had only just realized that Blaise was holding his bottle. "Give that back!" He made a grab for it, but fumbled and ended up flat on the floor. For a long time, he lay there, dazed. Slowly, with the sluggish carefulness a drunk person awards the most simple of tasks, he hauled himself to his feet and faced Blaise. His normally impeccable posture was slumped forward and his eyes were glazed and tired, punctuated by harsh bruises.

"What was so horrible that makes you want to drink at eight o'clock in the morning?" Blaise questioned, keeping the bottle out of reach of Draco's drunk paws. "I didn't even know you had whiskey on you." He took a careful sniff of the bottle and nodded; the bottle was definitely filled with whiskey.

An aggravated sigh came from Draco as he gave up trying to retrieve the bottle and crashed noisily onto the edge of his bed. He kicked his trunk with one disheartened foot. "It's not whiskey," he said in a muffled voice. He bent his head and stared hard at his toes. "It's Anti-Sobering Potion that I brewed last month. And it's not a something, either. It's a someone." His potion-covered hands captivated him now.

Blaise ignored the last bit as he stared hard between the sixteen-year-old and the bottle. So that was why four swallows awarded him the affect of several shots. Blaise shook his head, thoroughly disgusted that Draco would have Anti-Sobering Potion available in his trunk at all times. It was almost pathetic. Couldn't the Malfoy heir do anything right? He certainly couldn't get smashed properly. He had to do it quickly and easily...Blaise stopped abruptly and looked down at the bottle in his hand. This type of thing could have some very useful possibilities, especially if it retained the appearance of whiskey. He turned to ask Draco if he could borrow the recipe, but Draco had already curled up on the edge of his bed and fallen asleep.

For once the considerate friend, Blaise tugged on Draco to pull him out of such an uncomfortable position and left him to sleep, the first sleep the young Malfoy had achieved in a long time.

*

It was a long walk, but eventually he came at a crossroad.

Draco blinked in the hazy fog that surrounded him, trying his hardest to view a sign not far off. He was vaguely aware that he was standing right in the center where two roads met. He saw three wooden flats slatted to a post, each pointing at a direction he could travel. But the words were too blurry, too far away for his limited vision to read. Draco tried to walk nearer to read it, but with every step he took, the sign grew farther away. After about five steps, Draco realized the fruitlessness of his mission.

Great, so he couldn't know which way he was supposed to go. Where was he trying to go, anyway? Draco glanced left, then right, and finally forward, but the roads all looked the same. Straight roads of gray dust and grayer stones. He turned to look at the way he had come, but a heavy iron door appeared in the middle of that road with an obvious message. There was no going back that way.

That left him with three equally sightless options. Draco ran a hand through his hair and glanced about again, but there was no way to discern any difference between any of the roads. Finally, he decided to turn left, for he was left-handed anyway. He had not walked far down the nondescript dirt road, ensconced all around by forbidding fields of black, when he saw a stooped figure at the side of the road. Immediately, he quickened his pace, worried that whoever it was might be injured or sick.

After about four steps, however, he jolted to a stop and ran a hand down the front of his T-shirt. At least, it had been his T-shirt before, but now it felt heavy and oppressing. Now he glanced down to see robes of obsidian black flowing about. A cursory brush of fingers across his face told him more than he needed to know. Somehow, on this path, he had donned a black mask.

He had become a Death Eater.

Somehow, Draco's dream mind didn't seem to think that this was such a problem. After all, if the robes fit...Draco's conscience shook its head in disgust as he continued down the path. The very patter of his footfalls felt more familiar than any broomstick ever could. Something in the back of his mind was nagging him, telling him that this road was familiar, it was the path that he was meant to take. Caught between his warring conscience and the familiarity of it all, Draco pushed on.

As he neared the figure, trying to ignore the battle inside, shadows leapt about, mad flickering flames of darkness touching everything. Still, Draco did not flinch or back away. He was going to find out what was down this path, since he could not turn back. Nobody could accuse Draco Malfoy of ever being afraid.

The figure was stooped almost in half when Draco reached it. No voice could be found in his throat to call out. Finally, frustrated at his mute state, Draco pushed a hand against the shoulder of the shadowed person. Slowly, the figure straightened and white hands lifted the hood of the robe to reveal...

Draco recoiled away from the face that peered out at him, glaring. It couldn't be! It just wasn't possible!

But there it was, his face plastered to this phantom menace alongside a dusty road that felt too familiar.

Here, he knew, stood his destiny, in this scowling, evil boy. As he stared, the impact hit him like a strong punch to the stomach. He nearly moved to the side of the road and retched. He knew it and there was no fighting it.

Here was the path he was doomed to take.

*

Why am I doing this?

It was a question that she knew the answer to perfectly well, but as the answer unnerved her even more than the question did, it was an answer she did not want to admit. She had discovered a corrupt truth, one she was sure that no other human knew, with the exception of those responsible, and now it was time to take that truth to the man who could do something about it. She would rather eat pickled giant's toes, but Draco Malfoy had once said that Professor Snape was his favorite professor. And Severus Snape would be able to deal with this problem much better than Ginny would.

So Ginny made her very reluctant way down to the dungeons of Hogwarts Castle. She always felt an alarming sense of dread in the very footsteps that walking this path required; Professor Snape, while not very intimidating as a person, had the power to pass or to fail her and to ruin her chances at Head Girl. The thought was terrifying enough to make Ginny sweat and nearly cry to work harder in his class. She had pulled off each potion with better results than any of the Slytherins had, so she was assured at least a little bit of respect. She and Professor Snape had formed a sort of "I'll leave you alone if you do your work correctly" deal.

Still, she did not think that the deal would hold up if she were to just show up in his office on the last day of the school year.

Calling on her stock of Gryffindor nerve, Ginny knocked on the classroom door and, without waiting for an answer, pushed inside. The Potions classroom looked exactly like it had every time she came to sit in one of those horribly foul desks and brew some equally foul potion. Three rigid rows of desks and benches, with proper spaces to put a class two pewter cauldron up to boil, one teacher's desk looming over all other desks, and the bottled potions ingredients gleaming on the walls. Many a Gryffindor nightmare had occurred here in this very room. Resolutely, Ginny pushed past this classroom and knocked sharply on the closed office door.

For a long moment, there was silence within. Then, slowly, Snape's lurching footsteps scratched against the stone floor and the door was flung open to give Ginny a full view of a livid Potions Master. He stared at her in open shock, before: "Are you lost?"

Ginny closed her eyes for a brief moment, wishing she were anywhere but standing outside the Potions Master's office. "No. Believe it or not, I need to talk to you." Her voice sounded small, and she nearly cursed inside. This was just one fellow who spent too much time in the dungeons, what reason did she have to be afraid? "Um, can I sit down or something?"

Snape grudgingly moved aside, his eyes never leaving the Gryffindor. "Is this some sort of game?" he asked as Ginny gratefully collapsed into the chair behind his desk. "Did Potter or one of his little minions put you up to this?"

Ginny frowned at him. "Why would Harry do that? My business here has nothing to do with anything a Gryffindor is normally concerned with. Harry would actually prevent me from coming here today." She let her eyes drift over Snape's office, a place she had never actually seen, and was heartily surprised to find that Snape was a bit disorganized. Parchment was stacked ten to twelve deep on every available surface, and he had three cauldrons just sitting around. Ginny saw that he had been in the middle of composing a letter when she had interrupted him.

"And what exactly is your business, Miss Weasley?" Snape interrupted her search of his classroom.

Ginny swallowed and tried to sit up straighter under the Potion Master's pointed gaze. "Um, well, sir, you may or may not be aware of my recent friendship with Draco Malfoy." The professor looked surprised, but nodded. Ginny plowed on, feeling very much like somebody about to dive in over her head. "He mentioned you being his favorite professor, but I don't know if he comes to talk to you or whatever and I felt--"

"Miss Weasley, is there a point to this?" Snape moved across the room and sat behind his desk, sweeping the letter out of the way so that he could fold his hands expectantly.

"Oh. Oh, right." Ginny played with her thumb, a nervous habit. "Well, since he's mentioned you as a favorite professor, I figured you might be able to help him. He's more fond of you than he is of Dumbledore, who I would naturally go to." She was babbling, she knew, but who could help but babble when faced with the school's strictest professor?

Snape's expression was unreadable. "I'm touched. Do continue."

"Well, um, sir, to put it frankly, I'm worried about him." Scowling at Snape's dubious expression, she continued. "Really, sir. I made a discovery I probably wasn't supposed to this morning."

"And what discovery is that, Miss Weasley?"

Ginny tried very hard to quit scowling at the infuriating Potions Master. He made her feel like a very small child that needed to be led by the hand. Snape had always had a way of making her feel like that, however. Ginny's look was nearly pure loathing as she said, "He's been whipped."

The diamond-hard black eyes did not show any surprise, or any change at all as they regarded the youngest Weasley. Ginny nearly scowled at this alone; emotions were easy to work with, but this man might as well have been a stone wall. For all she knew, he could be rejoicing inside that his favorite student was cruelly beaten on summer break. Ginny swallowed, trying to squash this possibility from her mind. She had seen Severus Snape at meetings for the Order of Phoenix, when she and Ron had been smuggled in last summer break. She doubted that a member of the Order could be so cruel.

Unless Professor Snape was a spy.

Before Ginny's thoughts could become too frantic, the Potions Master leaned back in his desk chair and sighed, his shoulders slumping forward. "It is done," Ginny thought she heard him mutter. "Miss Weasley, you might think me insane for voicing this question, and I quite possibly am, but did you notice a pattern in the whip-marks you glimpsed?"

Floored, Ginny could do nothing but gape openly at him. "Your top student's been whipped, and you're sitting here, calm as anything, asking me if I had the chance to play connect-the-dots with his scars before he ran off?" As Ginny was known for her mouth and its tendencies to run away with itself, she did not clap her hands over the offending object and blush. Instead, she fixed the Potions Professor with her most furious look. "I don't know what smoke you breathed this morning and I'm not sure how it's affecting your brain, but isn't there something that you can do?"

"Miss Weasley, that is quite enough." Professor Snape looked about as welcoming as a spike-studded stone wall as he regarded the young Gryffindor with an expression kin to loathing. "The laws about my job dictate that I can do nothing because Mr. Malfoy is close to his coming-of-age. I cannot risk my job and my position for this." When Ginny opened her mouth to protest quite vehemently, he held up a hand. "I can assure you that no harm will befall Mr. Malfoy this summer. You, perhaps, have had a shot sometime in your childhood?"

Ginny snapped her mouth shut and answered, "Of course," without thinking about it. She had no idea where the professor was going with this, but it was probably a wiser idea to save her arguments for later.

"And shots are painful, yes, but vital to our health." Eyes dark, Ginny nodded slowly. "Yes, I'm positive you are aware of the paradox. Pain that spares pain. It's something we as humans face, and it's something that's doled out unequally. Mr. Malfoy, it seems, has been given quite the large share of protective pain."

Ginny had a quick mind, something that had aided her considerably during long class periods. Right now she frowned as the cogs whirred to life, drawing the analogy that Snape had used into place. "Pardon my confusion, sir," she said, "but what I'm getting out of this is that you're saying that Draco's been whipped...to protect him. I'm not sure that what you're suggesting is possible."

Well, it was certainly the first time a Gryffindor had managed to make the cranky Potions Master look impressed. Professor Snape nodded sagely at the youngest Weasley. "It's entirely possible. The matter of why he has been whipped is kept from Mr. Malfoy himself, but you will both know the purpose of the scars before the summer's out, I expect."

It was all too much; her head was starting to hurt from all of the warring possibilities jammed beneath her skull. She closed her eyes, but the confusion did not fade. Finally, she opened her eyes and looked the Potions Professor straight in the eye. "You're positive that he won't be abused this summer?"

Snape's expression turned to bitterness so quickly that Ginny could have sworn the impressed look had never existed. "The Dark Lord will make sure of that himself."

Despite her fear of Voldemort, Ginny knew that when he wanted something so strange done, it would be done. Silently, she nodded. Another paradox added to the list, most of which involved Draco and Harry. Before Ginny could review the list, she burst out, "But I'm still worried about him." Before Snape could stop her, she continued on, "I know he won't be touched this summer, but I'm worried about him right now. He's not in the most stable of conditions with all the pressure that's been put on him. And when I saw the scars, he closed up completely. If he doesn't know their purpose, he'll think the worst and surely hurt himself-"

"Where is Mr. Malfoy right now?" Professor Snape interrupted.

Ginny closed her mouth and thought hard. "I haven't seen him since before breakfast." She had heard some interesting things about him all day, though. "I was listening in on some of the conversations at lunch today and one of the Slytherins was telling Crabbe and Goyle that Draco had taken some sort of Potion--you're the professor, I thought maybe you could help--"

A frantic fifteen-year-old on one's hand was the last thing any sensible professor would want. Quickly, Professor Snape lifted his hands and glanced about, quite unsure of what to do. "Calm down, calm down." He cast a frantic look about, but the walls did not offer any support. Once he saw that Ginny's breathing was back to normal, he pressed, "Did this young man mention the potion at all?"

Ginny's brow wrinkled as she worked hard to recall the conversation. "He said something about whiskey or something like that." The three had been too far away for Ginny to eavesdrop properly, and moving closer would have meant sitting with Harry and Ron. As the two ranked pretty high on the list of people she did not like at the moment, she had stayed in her seat.

There could only be one potion that could be confused for whiskey. The Potion Master's shoulders tensed as he looked at Ginny, renewed worry in his eyes. "All right then. I'll send somebody in with an antidote for Mr. Malfoy. You don't need to worry about anything, but be sure to talk to Mr. Malfoy on the train tomorrow. I dare say you two will have a lot to talk about."

And with that said, his demeanor changed completely. "Now, please remove yourself from my office before I take points from Gryffindor for being late to the Leaving Feast."

Ginny gave a small squeak and let herself out, scurrying past the horridly clean classroom and through the dank tunnels leading out of the dungeons. She had escaped an encounter with Snape, and was quite possibly the only Gryffindor to ever willingly visit Professor Snape in his office. This was going on the list of things she had accomplished that none of her other brothers could, right below the "acquired a sense of wit and tactfulness."

*

So deeply locked into a potion-induced sleep was Draco that he did not hear the soft patters of footsteps that did not belong there on the floor to the 6th year Slytherin Boys' Dormitory. He did not hear the sounds of the curtains being pulled back, or of the muttered words to end the Silencing Spell on his curtains that was always there. It was not until icy hands gripped his freezing shoulder that Draco noticed anything more than the demented nightmares that he had been trapped into.

"Malfoy," a voice said close to his ear. The cold hand worked his shoulder, shaking the blond Slytherin from any hopes of sleep. Still, Draco scrunched his eyes shut, trying to avoid the world of the awake for a few more moments. All he wanted to do was sleep-why couldn't they leave him alone for once? And why was everything shaking?

"Go 'way," he mumbled when it was apparent that the shaking was not going to stop. Why was he shaking? There weren't earthquakes at Hogwarts...

"Oh, good, you're awake." The voice was deep, but not the deep of the very stupid or very mean. This was the sort of voice meant for a psychiatrist or a doctor. "You need to stay awake now."

Not if I can help it,

some rebellious part of Draco's mind countered. I've earned my beauty rest-now go away!

The person leaning over him either could not read minds or was just too stubborn for his or her own good. Draco, eyes glued shut, scowled at whoever it was and grumbled. "Fine, then. I'm awake." Slowly, he opened one eye.

Alarms went off in every corner of his brain as fire burned through his eye and a short scream of agony erupted from his mouth. The worst migraine he had ever had settled firmly behind his eyes, forcing him to curl up and clutch his skull, whimpering like a small child.

"How the mighty have fallen," the voice continued, and Draco did not miss the bitter irony. "You forget, genius, you took Anti-Sobering Potion." The hand was now pushing up on his shoulder, trying to force him back against the backboard. With a hot iron poked right into the center of his brain, Draco could do nothing but go along. His hands covered his eyes, blocking in the smoldering afterimages. "C'mon, drink up." The hand grabbed his and a cold goblet stem was pressed into Draco's palm; automatically, he tightened his fingers about the goblet. Whoever it was that had decided to interrupt his rightfully earned sleep helped him guide the goblet to his mouth--his hand couldn't hold still, it seemed--but liquid still splashed down his front.

The strange liquid tasted of cinnamon and lemons, of all things, and had a foul aftertaste. However, Draco did not care-two sips of the horrible drink and the pain in his head had cleared away, taking the fog with it. Hesitantly, he opened one eye, but was not rewarded with spasms of pain. "Who're you?"

Had his mind not been trapped in a vortex of agony, Draco would have assumed that the person helping was just some Slytherin who had decided to be nice or wanted something from him. The young man that leaned over him now, dressed immaculately in his formal school robes, was definitely not Slytherin. Draco could not see a badge anywhere on the person's form, so he or she must have sneaked into the Slytherin Dungeon. He looked vaguely familiar, with dark hair and equally dark eyes, but Draco could not place his face with a name. The young man cleared all troubles away by sticking out his hand and saying, "Colin Creevey. Fifth year Gryffindor. I'm a Phoenix member, like you, so Professor Dumbledore sent me down here to wake you for the Leaving Feast. He would have sent a Slytherin, but you're the only Slytherin Phoenix member.

"Oh, yes, and congratulations. Slytherin's won the House Cup for the first time since I've been here. All up to your captaining of the team, I must say--"

"You talk too much," Draco interrupted. He blinked repeatedly, trying to get a grip on the fact that he was in his bed in the Slytherin Dungeon, listening to some Gryffindor chatter away, and the clock read nine hours later than he had picked up the bottle of potion. "I've been asleep all day?"

"That's what Ginny said. She told Professor Snape to send somebody to help you, and Professor Dumbledore picked me." Colin's mouth shut with a contrite snap and he straightened, automatically brushing his robes off. "Anyway, the Leaving Feast begins in ten minutes, and they're all expecting you there, as you are the Slytherin Champion, it seems. Might want to hurry." He turned to leave and then decided against it. "You also might want to do something about your hair."

As the door shut behind the talkative Gryffindor, Draco reached up and felt the pelt of hair that had slowly been growing longer as the year progressed. He winced as he felt clumps of it sticking out at funny angles. He had fallen asleep sopping wet, dried only the slightest from his stormy trip through the dungeons. His clothing was still a bit damp in the back, but definitely rumpled. His nightmares had obviously been very bad, although he could only remember a crossroads...and a dark figure...

If Creepy, which was what Draco had started calling Colin Creevey in his mind, was correct, he didn't have much time to get ready. Being at odds with one's house was never a good thing, and Draco had been skirting on that option all year long. He did not need to show up late to the Leaving Feast. This would only serve to increase animosity and make things more difficult for the summer.

And, heaven knew, Draco didn't need to make this summer more difficult than it already was.

He arrived in the last trickle of students, his hair deceptively wet (hit with a styling charm) and his robes neatly pressed and as immaculate as Creepy's had been. He wore his school cape, which was only worn at formal events like the Leaving Feast. He had cast a deceptive charm on the cape, which would hide the insistent shaking from the other students. The only thing he would have to worry about would be picking up his goblet; if another Slytherin saw his hand shaking, he was not sure what would happen. He was not even sure how many people Zabini had told about his crazed drinking spell that morning.

The potion hadn't worked. Draco had brewed it some weeks before to help him forget anything horrible that could possibly attack him. It was a cowardly thing to do, but the potion had given him some sort of inner strength, a secret he could keep like one keeps a tryst to oneself. Enough of an Anti-Sobering Potion, drunk quickly enough, could help erase very fresh memories, it was said. Draco did not want to remember the shock, the horror, that had been on Ginny Weasley's face as she looked at his most-kept secret. She would think him a case to be pitied now! Why, oh why, hadn't he remembered to renew the concealing spell?

Because Ginny was the kind of person you could lose yourself to, that was why.

Draco folded his hands inside the cape, smiling haltingly at the happy conversation around him. Most of the Slytherins were using this opportunity to gloat about how much better they were than the other houses. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw were nearly tied for second place, it said. After all, Gryffindor had a very new Quidditch team, and Ravenclaw had trained to nearly top notch with Cho Chang as their captain. Plus the first year Ravenclaws were said to be incredibly intelligent, and had earned scores of points. Draco had earned his fair share as a student, but it was his Quidditch team that had pulled off the win.

The Quidditch team was sitting together, clustered around the table and toasting each other. Trying as hard as he could, Draco toasted with the rest of them, tapping his goblet against the rest of the goblets. Malcolm Baddock, of all people, sat across from him, never meeting his eyes. Draco strongly suspected that Professor Snape had had a few words with the young Keeper. Beside Draco, Tiger Jawkins was in high spirits, toasting to the craziest things and flirting merrily with Jameson Flint, who looked befuddled by this attention. Renton Marx clapped him on the shoulder and laughed. Vincent Crabbe and Millicent Bulstrode were chuckling quietly at some joke; Draco wondered how long it would take the two of them to get together. A Beater and a Chaser, who would have thought?

"Hear, hear!" Tiger called to the Slytherin table. "Took us...how long, Dray?" she asked Draco, a look of confusion on her pointed face.

"Six years," Draco whispered.

"It took us six years to win again, but isn't victory sweet?" she called now to the table. She was met with a chorus of "Hear, hear!" and "Oh, yeah!" "And doesn't it feel good to finally let everybody know we're better than them?"

Draco had to hand Tiger one thing: she knew how to work a crowd up. He snickered quietly at his empty plate as the other tables decided to protest and the Slytherins decided to cause a ruckus of cheers. One glance at the Gryffindor table, where he had studiously avoided looking so far, told him that the Gryffindors were none too happy with the Slytherin victory. They didn't own the cup, after all. It was Slytherin's turn.

"Speech!" Blaise Zabini called down the table. "Malfoy, give a speech!" He looked about him for support and waved his hands. "C'mon, Slytherin deserves a speech from the captain!"

It happened quickly. Tiger and Crabbe, who happened to be on Draco's other side, hauled a protesting Draco to his feet and forced him to stay upright. Malcolm Baddock shoved a glass of pumpkin juice into his hand, and Tiger pushed his arm up so that the whole Hall could see his shaking hand. Oh, well, at least they'll just think it's nerves, some distant part of his mind commented as Draco looked, shocked, from one classmate to another. Just pour on the Malfoy charm.

Clear your throat.

That was the way Lucius always started his impromptu speeches and so, with a leaden gullet, Draco did the same. Now, rub it in and get the Slytherins worked up. Take it from there. The innate Malfoy manners were slowly leaking in, prompting Draco to wheel about and wave his goblet at the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. "We all know how the saying goes, don't we?" he asked his classmates in a jeer. "We Slytherins always hear the other houses say, 'Don't drop to the level of a Slytherin,' don't we?" This was met with a mild roar of agreement from his fellow Slytherins. "Well, too bad. I'm already there." Somebody coughed, probably hiding a snicker. "So I have a few things to say.

"First, to the Hufflepuffs...you fought well...but not well enough. Sorry." A few of the Hufflepuffs in his year looked ready to murder him, but Draco swallowed and continued. "And you Ravenclaws...Well, you had a strong Quidditch team, too, but...it looks like the best team won after all." Now he was positive he had just earned top student on the hate lists of two houses. Why not try for a third while he was at it? When he wasn't their champion, Draco was pretty loathed in the Slytherin house.

On to the Gryffindors. "And you Gryffindors? Well, well, well." Despite himself, Draco let out a small chuckle as he met the eyes of an enraged Ron Weasley and Harry Potter. "I'm sorry, but I fear I must regress to my childhood days for this part. All I have to say to you is 'Nyah-nyah-nyah!'"

Now the laughter was barely held back; for reasons he was not sure about, he wanted to do nothing more than fall to the floor laughing right now. As it was, most of the other Slytherins were howling with laughter. He even caught a slight smile on the lips of Professor Snape, although the rest of the teachers looked less than thrilled. They had let the Weasley twins do this last year; it was Draco's turn, and they could do nothing to stop it.

"What can I say more than, we came, we played, we beat you all?" Now Draco thrust the goblet high, where it was joined by many other Slytherin goblets. "To Slytherin! The house that houses the best!" He looked frantically to his Quidditch team to cover his pathetic speech. Quickly, Tiger and Renton leapt to the rescue. They started banging fists on the table and chanting "Slytherin!" as Draco sat down.

Before the Slytherins could get too far and enrage too many more people, Professor Dumbledore clapped his hands and the chanting stopped. The Hall grew quiet as the Headmaster stood up and swept his gaze around the hallway. "Thank you, Mr. Malfoy. Although, in the future, you will wish to hold your comments to the other houses back, yes?"

"What can I say?" Draco called back before he could think about it. "I'm a Slytherin!" His table cheered.

If Dumbledore found this amusing, he gave no sign. "I do believe," he told the assembled students, "that it is time to announce the house points received this year. Hufflepuff stands at an impressive 374 points this year!" There was a smattering of applause, although Draco noticed a lot of angry looks directed at him. "Ravenclaw, none too shabby. You scored 392 points this year! And just ahead of you with 393 points is Gryffindor!" He gave the slightest pause to let students clap and announced, "And Slytherin has won the House Cup this year with 423 points!"

The students around Draco exploded in a raucous cheer, swinging goblets around and splashing pumpkin juice about. For once, Draco joined in.

It was okay to be accepted.

Tonight, at least.

*

Draco's trunk lay open in front of him as he inspected the contents. He had checked and double-checked it over, to make sure that it contained his school uniforms, his summer assignments, his decks of cards (to be burned), the Divination tools that Pansy Parkinson had given him, his Quidditch gear, his Cauldron, his specialized set of potions tools, the renewed bottle of Anti-Sobering Potion, his spare wand (bought on a secret trip to Ollivander's last summer), and his strengthening potion. The Soul Book lay open on his bed, but Draco had not found the courage to look into it yet. He had discovered in a very short time that Soul Book actually showed him what he needed to see--he had seen pictures of beautiful foreign places to placate him, had read a comical story about a prince and a frog, and had read about many potions that might be useful.

He feared what the Soul Book might say tonight.

Most of his roommates were down in the Common Room, sharing glasses of firewhiskey and celebrating Slytherin's capture of the House Cup. Draco had paid his visit to the festivities, taking deceptive sips of his firewhiskey glass (the firewhiskey had been dumped on a plant when nobody was looking), and had been the life of the party for thirty minutes. He had been kept so busy since the Leaving Feast, partying, packing, and now checking his work. But the nagging feeling that somebody knew about him and his truth was left open would not leave him alone.

Draco closed the trunk with a loud whapping noise.

He felt it then, the undeniable pull of the Soul Book. Even after three days with the book, Draco could recognize when it was drawing him to itself. He also knew that there was no way he could ignore the pull, either, so he reluctantly trooped over to the bed and scooped the book up. Sticking his tongue out slightly, he thumbed through the pages and leapt back as though the book had shocked him.

Staring up at him from the page was a freshly written page in the diary of Ginny Weasley.

"What the--" The book had never showed him something like this before, but then he had only had it for three days.

'Dear Journal', the page read in a short, scrawled sort of writing, 'I'm not really sure if I should put this down in words, but I may need it later, so I will. Besides, I'll put a deceptive spell on it or something so that nobody can read it. Nobody will ever see this.'

"Fat chance of that happening," Draco muttered aloud as he sat down on the edge of the bed to read. Had he been a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor, he would have felt guilty, but curiosity had trapped him.

'I haven't really written much about Draco, my newest friend here. There's not really much to write because he's pretty quiet, and you know how exams get. He's completely different from what everybody says he is. Ron swears up and down that he's cruel and mean, but I feel like Draco understands me more than any of the Trio ever could. He just has this

knowing look, like whatever you say is locked in a safe with him. Everybody says to be careful because he's Voldemort's top follower and all that, but I don't believe any of it. I know what I'm doing here, really.'

Draco blinked. She had written 'Voldemort,' something most people shook at the thought of doing. The quill hadn't even quavered over the word-she wrote it like it was the word "the." Completely intrigued now, he read on.

'I knew there was something different about him than the rest of the Slytherins, but I never thought it was something that serious. It's horrible, journal. I saw them there-scars from a whip. Some cruel--'

And here Ginny used a word Narcissa would have considered unladylike, '--actually raised a whip to him and beat him! How can people be like that?

'There's no doubt to who did it, either. Lucius Malfoy's perfectly capable of slipping me a diary that makes me nearly kill my older brother's best friend and my best friend. Why should I think he would be above beating his only son? It disgusts me!!! People like that foul Malfoy run the world while good, kind people like Draco and Daddy get pushed down. It makes my blood boil!! Lucius Malfoy had better hope that he doesn't see me any time soon because I will not hesitate to do something really mean right there on the spot. I'm so worked up right now that I don't even know what I'll do, but it'll be

bad. It's amazing that Draco's even related to the foul creature. Well, they do look impossibly alike, but...

'Draco's been avoiding me all day, too. He practically ran away with his Slytherin pals after the Feast. After that horrible speech....honestly, 'nyah-nyah-nyah?' I haven't said that in years.'

Draco grinned at this, despite the heaviness of her early words. 'Ooh, Ron and Harry are ticked. Hermione had to practically haul Ron back into his seat before he could rip Draco's throat out right then and there! Ron definitely has the Weasley temper, all right. He gets it from Mum, I think. Only Percy's got a temper that bad, and that's only when he's terribly provoked!

'I hope I can talk to Draco on the train tomorrow and tell him that I don't think anything's wrong with him. He doesn't have to tell me anything, either. I just don't want him to close me off because I found something out that he's been keeping secret. If I don't talk to him on the train, I'll owl him. He can't avoid me forever, you know. We

are going to the same summer academy, even if he doesn't know it yet!

'It's getting late, and I have to get up early to help Ron pack. My brother really needs a girlfriend who can do this for him. I'm not his keeper, for crying out loud! Good night. Ginny.'

As soon as Draco had read the last word, the diary entry faded from view and was replaced with a blank page that smelled vaguely of cherries, Ginny's scent. Draco shook his head and closed the book. Why had it shown him a diary entry? Weren't those things supposed to be private? Draco had never had a sister or a diary, so he knew very little about diary maintenance. But he was pretty sure that he was not supposed to read other people's diary entries.

Draco's chagrin faded as he carefully placed the Soul Book into his trunk. He had not read much into the life of Ginny Weasley, but he had read enough to know that the incident with the Chamber of Secrets was one she was never going to forgive herself for. Lucius Malfoy had hurt her in much the same way he had hurt Draco; they had both been burned by a whip, physically real or not. Ginny bore scars as real as Draco's, although hers were emotional scars.

Why had they been pulled together like this? It was not quite animal magnetism, but it was magnetism nonetheless. There was the smallest of attraction; Draco would admit easily that Ginny was a very pretty young woman, not an exotic, but a "girl-next-door" type of pretty. And he knew that she definitely was attracted to him. But there was a deeper connection than that, a rather strange connection that afforded him peace, of all things. He could talk to his Quidditch team for hours about plays and other things, but he would still gain more satisfaction from a moment of silence walking beside Ginny in the corridors. It was an emotional bond, and not quite one he was sure he understood.

Draco rubbed his eyes and lay down on his bed, still clothed in his school uniform. The cape spread about his body, a dark halo encompassing his slim form. The scabs on his hands had been given three days without letters from his father to heal. He would have scars there, to remind him of the destruction he could cause to his own body. Like the scars on his back would always be there, constant reminders of the destruction caused by his father. For a long time, Draco stared up at the canopy above his bed.

His father. The man he would have to face tomorrow. The man who had not touched his son for the first fifteen years. The man who had made Draco's last year a living nightmare. The man who looked like him. His father.

Draco closed his eyes, willing the memories of his plaguing dreams away. The Soul Book bound to him would provide strength, his strange bond with Ginny would lift him, and his promise to the Order of Phoenix would enforce that strength. "What binds you now may set you free," Draco whispered to himself, quoting some fragment of a memory. Carefully, as though afraid of the candlelight, he opened his eyes. His bonds would save him from his father.

But nothing could save him from Lord Voldemort.

Of that and nothing else he was sure.