Draco tapped his wand against the side of the cauldron, causing its contents to swirl around while he glanced down at the book in hand. His potions bench was covered in rare and expensive ingredients, all carefully collected by the blonde immersed in his thoughts. He caught a glimpse of the abomination on his skin, the Dark Mark, and sighed. The gruesome skull was still just as vivid now as it had been when he had sworn allegiance to the Dark Lord.
It had been a year since the Final Battle at Hogwarts, and he still could not sleep through the night without waking up in a cold sweat. His demons haunted him, even in sleep, and no amount of Malfoy gold could chase them out of his brain.
He had never wanted to take the Mark. No, his father forced him to go through that particular ritual in order to save Narcissa. Draco thought later that Lucius had gone mad that night, the fear of losing his wife reflected in his eyes as they knelt at the Dark Lord's side, writhing in agony under the spell that would mark them for Death Eaters. His madness was a waste, it seems, since Voldemort's supporters had his parents killed anyways after walking away from the final battle, when they were ambushed in their safehouse, a summer mansion located in the southern half of France.
Draco remembered his mother's screams and his father's pleas as the few remaining Death Eaters killed them slowly, torturing them with dark magic over the course of a week. Draco managed to survive only by hiding in the corridors beneath the mansion that the house elves used as living quarters and eating what little he could scrounge or kill.
Since the battle, he couldn't go anywhere without jeering crowds spewing insults, hatred practically mixed in with the sweat from their pores. He had inherited the Malfoy vaults, filled to the brim with glittering Galleons, but the name that came with it was only associated with the dark side of the war, the losing side. He couldn't even leave the warded walls of his mansion without fearing for his life.
Everyone associated with the Dark side that had renounced Voldemort and his beliefs had been welcomed back with open arms into the Wizarding community, but Draco wasn't even granted that reprieve. He was still connected to the death of Dumbledore in the eyes of the general public, though the Ministry had cleared his name. Draco's blonde hair and silver eyes may have been Malfoy in origin, but the humiliated silence that had befallen the boy after the war was not. He had no friends that hadn't distanced themselves from the Malfoy name, no family. For the first time in his life Draco felt utterly alone.
Now, with the reconstruction of Hogwarts completed, all the seventh years that wanted to finish their education could return. Draco wanted to go, but knew that with the Mark on his skin he wouldn't be safe. His father may have been a Death Eater, but Draco had just wanted to keep his mother safe.
Head lost in memories of the past year, Draco realized his cauldron was smoking. The fumes were billowing around his small lab in the Manor, quickly filling his lungs with the noxious green smoke. Coughing, he tapped it once, and the bubbling mess vanished. His lab still reeked of the failure, so he ran out and summoned an elf to get rid of the stench.
"Bloody hell," he mumbled. This was supposed to be the potion that would rid him of the memory of his past burned into his arm. Now he would be forced to return to the school under the scathing eyes of his peers, making him question whether or not it was even worth returning. Eyes watering, he left his botched attempt at removing the Dark Mark and climbed the stairs to his personal chambers.
He strolled into his room, head pounding from the fumes. His room was decorated in the traditional Malfoy colors, emerald and silver, as the Slytherin heritage made its way into the king-sized canopy bed draped in silk. Light flowed in through the heavy, half-opened silver drapes and onto the plush carpet, falling on dark wooden furniture filling the bedroom. Elegantly furnished, his room held little sign of the depression Draco had fallen into since the death of his parents.
He stumbled into the adjoining bathroom, eyelids heavy as he fought to turn the shower on. Not even able to vanish his clothes, he sank onto the cool white tile of his walk-in shower, his untucked white shirt quickly soaking through and sticking to his pale white skin.
The bathroom spun and Draco grabbed his head, eager to make the pounding in his skull vanish. His stomach churned, threatening to make a return visit of his breakfast. His body felt strange, like it didn't belong to him. Draco felt like he was shrinking in some places, stretching in others. Blackness invaded his vision, and the last thing he saw before succumbing to the darkness was his hair, now past his chest and falling in long, platinum blonde curls.
