Your knees hit the gravel first. Sharp stones tear through the thin fabric of your ruined clothes, biting into flesh you can't feel anymore. You don't brace for it. You can't. The magic-suppressing collar around your neck sends a static pulse down your spine every time you even think about resisting. A warning. A leash.

The Death Eaters on either side of you laugh when you flinch.

Malfoy Manor rises like a pale corpse from the mist.

Cold stone. Tall, shuttered windows. Iron gates curling like claws. A place that used to be whispered about with fear. Now it's simply reality. The reality of a world that Voldemort won, and you lost.

A man stands at the top of the steps. Arms folded. Back impossibly straight. His blond hair is longer than you remember from the old wanted posters, and it catches the weak, grey light like spun silver. He looks… older. Sharper. Haunted.

Your stomach turns.

Draco turns his back on them like they no longer exist. He looks at you—really looks at you—and there's something in his gaze that doesn't match the flatness of his voice. Something searching. Something almost like pain. But it's gone before you can name it.