Battle Scars {Draco Malfoy}

Chapter One

Mirrors.

Mirrors were forbidden in the Easton household after Clara was released from St. Mungo's. After weeks of treatment to her injuries sustained by the werewolf attack, the Healers informed Clara and her parents that there was nothing more they could do for the girl. She was going to have to live with the scars for the rest of her life.

The first time since her arrival, Clara felt enough strength to push herself up from the bed. The first thing she did was venture to the nearest mirror. As soon as she look at her reflection, she began to cry. Her father tried to pull her away from the mirror but the damage was already done, she already knew what she looked like. 

The image was burned into her mind forever.

Several long scratches on the left side of her face had scarred over similar to the ones on her arms that she had gained from trying to block the incoming attack. From that moment on, Clara couldn't bring herself to look in a mirror anymore. 

The only time she would ever see her reflection was by accident normally in a window or some sort of glass. When she did, it only left her in more tears than before.

If her own reflection didn't make her feel bad enough, whenever she found someone staring at her, or seeing a child point in her direction, Clara just felt the need to crawl into a hole and hide forever. Her parents tried to offer her words of comfort but they didn't hold much for her during the first couple of months.

Clara thought of makeup but she knew with the scars she had that she couldn't conceal them. There would be no sense in wasting her time. So, she hid behind her brunette hair most days trying to pretend that there was nothing wrong on the outside, even though she was internally screaming.

The war left her with nightmares that would wake her up in the middle of night, her breathing staggered and her body drenched in sweat. Most nights it was her parents that would wake her up from the night terrors, as they could hear her screaming from down the hall in the home. She was given sleeping aid potions and draughts in order to find a more peaceful slumber, but they didn't work. As if the cursed scars on her face and body withheld the memories and would never let her forget, even during slumber.

Many claimed Clara was lucky to be alive, and that she only had the scars. They told her it could have been so much worse. If in fact, the werewolf attacking her had been in full form, she wouldn't have survived or she would have transformed into a werewolf herself every full moon. She had escaped with only scars and lupine tendencies, such as the ever growing desire for rare meat.

Her parents were at their wit's end trying to come up with solutions for their only child, but nothing seemed to offer the girl the comfort she craved. What she really wanted was the scars to be gone so she could return to her normal life, but no one could give her that. 

Over the summer, however, Clara came to the conclusion that she needed closure. She needed to return back to the place where it happened. She wanted to return to Hogwarts and complete her seventh year of school, properly. Not with Death Eaters pretending they were some sort of professors and preaching how muggle-borns were filth on the face of the Earth. She wanted things to go back to the way they were before the war took place, but she knew it wasn't going to happen.

Life would never be the same for her, because of the scars. Not only did it affect her mental state most days, Clara found her number of friends dwindling everyday.

Not that she could blame them, her scars were a constant reminder of what had taken place in the beginning of May, and like herself, everyone was just trying to forget. But how could they forget when the results of the war were staring right back at them.

Clara would return back to Hogwarts completely friendless upon September first.

Her parents offered her to bring her to Hogsmeade at least to avoid the trip on the train, but Clara insisted on taking the Hogwarts Express.

 If she was going to do this, she was going to do it right.

Sitting on her bed, with her trunk open and already packed, her mother walked in and sat beside her. A moment of silence passed between them before her mother spoke first.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"For the last time, Mum, I'm going back." Draco Malfoy sighed heavily as he walked away from his mother who was trying to do everything in her power to keep her son from returning for another year.

"But why?" Narcissa could not understand why her son would subject himself to the obvious scrutiny that would come with him returning to the school.

If it had not been for the family deflecting from the Dark Lord the last minute, they would all be in Azkaban at that very moment. But they had been spared but not really. The Malfoy family was not held in the regards it once had been. 

Whenever they were in public, they were met with nasty words and even threats. Draco's father had become a ghost of his former self, normally sitting away in his study not speaking to anyone. Narcissa was the only to hold up the family as best as she could, which is why she felt herself crumbling when her son mentioned returning to the school.

She would not be there to protect her son from the judging glares and the awful things that she knew would be said to him. She figured Draco was doing it almost as a punishment to himself as even he could not forgive himself for the things he had participated in under Lord Voldemort.

His mind was set though and as an adult, there was nothing Narcissa could do to keep him from going. She only hoped that the other students and the faculty of Hogwarts would have some mercy on him.

To answer her question, Draco pushed back his hair and swallowed the lump developing in his throat.

"I just want to make things right."