Draco threw himself against his mother's arms, the woman desperately trying to hold him back from running into that room and getting himself killed.

She didn't know what was going on, all they could hear was glass shattering and Harry screaming and sobbing. Tears were flooding down Draco's face, mostly of anger and frustration as he clawed at his mother's arms. "Let me go!" He yelled, voice strained and breaking as he used all of his strength to pull himself away from his mother. Narcissa was strong, but eventually couldn't hold her hysterical son back.

Draco nearly fell over when he got away, but quickly threw the doors open. He stopped dead in his tracks, hardly able to comprehend the scene in front of him.

Glass covered the room, all of the windows had been shattered and the glass had flown in all directions. The room was empty, none of the Death Eaters had stuck around; not even Lucius. The glass wasn't what bothered Draco, what bothered him was the blood.

The dining table was covered in it, the naked, broken corpse of a woman lying on top of it, surrounded by a pool of dark red blood. It had leaked from torn stumps where her arms and legs were supposed to be, as well as from her head, which had been impaled with a large shard of glass. She was still; obviously dead.

Draco trembled, and promptly felt bile rising in his throat. How many times had this happened on that table, which he'd eaten off his entire life? He suddenly felt very dizzy and his stomach lurched, causing him to throw up.

He steadied himself against the door, unable to look at the dismembered woman, and instead searching around the room for Harry. Through bleary vision he caught sight of a figure in the corner.

Harry was shaking like a leaf caught in the autumn breeze, his legs pulled up against his chest, head buried between them. He looked to tiny and fragile.

Draco didn't hesitate to dash forward, anxious to get to Harry as quickly as possible, but soon realised his mistake. Crunch. Jagged pain shot through his foot as he landed on the broken shards of glass that had been flung around the room, Draco looking down to see blood already starting to stream from his bare feet, staining the dark wooden floor. He hissed in pain through his teeth, the noise making Harry look up.

Suddenly, Draco knew why everyone was terrified of him. Despite his tiny size he looked absolutely monstrous.

The specially tailored shirt Narcissa had made for him was shredded and covered in blood, and none of it appeared to be his own blood. His hair was wild and sticking on end, like the way a cat's would when it was trying to appear bigger than it actually was. His emerald green eyes were wide and eerily blank, his pupils not even visible, having shrunk to the size of pinpricks.

Draco took another step forward, wincing as he walked on the broken glass. "Harry?" He asked, gritting his teeth through the pain.

"Go away!" Harry yelled, his voice loud, tone angry. Draco recoiled as he felt like he'd been punched in the stomach, the wind knocked out of him. He stumbled backwards, feet sinking further into the broken shards of glass, most of which were now tinted red, his feet both a bloody crimson mess. He choked, unable to force air into his clearly winded lungs, feelings like he was suffocating under the weight of his own chest.

Harry stared at him with emotionless, dead eyes, not reacting in any way at all to Draco's obvious pain.

"Harry, I'm sorry," Draco gasped out, legs shaking like leaves as he tried to remain upright. "I didn't know this was going to happen, I swear."

Betrayal, anger and fear still echoed in Harry's eyes, but he looked away from Draco and towards the table, where the dismembered woman was still lying. He walked over to her, barefoot on the glass, staring at her. Her eyes had gone glassy and blank, and what chilled Draco the most was the clear notion that this wasn't his first time seeing a dead body. There was no 'normal' reaction, no screaming, crying, terror, disgust, Harry just watched the bloodied woman before uttering a word.

"Who?"

Who was the woman? Draco blinked furiously, holding back tears. She could be anyone; The Dark Lord did things without reason. She could be an enemy, or someone they'd just pulled off the streets. "I don't know who she is, Harry."

"No," Harry replied, touching the woman's bloodstained face with his forefinger. "That man," he murmured.

Draco cringed. "He's a bad man," he whispered, shaking, the pain in his feet and stomach now only a dull echo, mind in a blurry haze of terror. "He's horrid. Evil."

Harry blinked. It was clear that Harry knew that evil was; in fact, that was really all he knew. From the men who'd done those things to him in those awful experiments, to the mistreatment he suffered at Azkaban, and now to this. It took very little to push him over the edge, it seemed, and he'd leave a path of death and destruction in his wake, even though that wasn't his intention.

He went from one place to another, trying to find hope and happiness, but pain followed him like a shadow.

******

Draco sat in front of the fireplace, a pair of tweezers in his hand, his bloody feet stinging fiercely as he pulled out the tiny shards of glass that had become stuck in the cuts.

It was a long and time consuming process; and Draco wasn't enjoying it at all.

Harry was awake, sitting silently in an armchair, his legs pulled up against his chest. The shock had hit him just after Narcissa had managed to get him to change his clothes, and he'd gone very quiet.

Lucius was gone, well, for now at least. He'd be back soon, Draco knew that, and when he did, Draco had no doubt that Narcissa would maim him. She'd searched the entire house for him whilst Draco was with Harry in the dining hall, lost in torrents of her own rage at what had happened, but hadn't found her husband anywhere.

Draco pulled out the last shard of glass with a strained groan, dropping the red tinted shard into a tray with the others. Wincing, he took the towel his mother had left him and tried his best to dab away the blood, wincing.

The door opened and Narcissa walked quietly into the darkened room, a tray of tea and biscuits in her hand. She set it down on the coffee table and kneeled down beside her son, taking her wand from her pocket. With a few spells, the cuts on Draco's feet began to shrink and disappeared, leaving thin white lines as scars.

The woman collapsed onto the couch, exhausted. Draco stayed in front of the fire, staring into the flames until his eyes burned and watered, and Harry was silent, green eyes flickering nervously between the pair.

"Sorry," he finally whispered, and at first Draco didn't hear him, turning to look at Harry.

"What?"

"Sorry," Harry repeated, louder, and tearfully, words choked.

"No, no," Narcissa moved quickly to kneel in front of the armchair Harry had curled himself up in. "We're not mad at you, honey. Nothing that happened was your fault."

"I-" Harry started, but Narcissa shushed him.

"We'll figure it out, alright, sweetie?" She said softly, Harry flinching away at first when she put her hand on his cheek. "Why don't you and Draco go and get some sleep? I'm sure things will be better in the morning."

******

Draco lay awake that night, staring numbly at the ceiling, his mind whirring. He couldn't fall asleep; it was impossible with his brain running circles in his head.

Harry was curled up just out of arms reach, asleep. He was extremely touchy and refused to get too close to Draco, which didn't help the anxiety that crawled beneath the blond's skin. He felt sick to his stomach because of what had happened today.

His mother hadn't known. They'd brought that woman in after she'd left the room. She was furious and horrified, and Draco didn't really want to be around when Lucius came back and she found him, which was why he was trying to figure out a way to get out of here.

Draco rolled over to look at Harry, only able to make out his tiny form and head of wild black hair through the dark. Harry couldn't cope with another meeting like that, he just couldn't, and Draco couldn't put him through that again. But where would he go? They didn't have any relatives who would hide them, or friends, for that matter.

The safest place to take him would be Hogwarts. Albus Dumbledore was the only man Voldemort had ever feared, but even so, enemies lurked in those halls too. Draco knew he couldn't trust any of the other Slytherin's, and didn't know if Severus would rat him out either.

Draco shut his eyes tightly and scrunched up his face, beyond exhausted. He'd have to wait until Harry was stronger and could walk and run on his own, or until Lucius got back. Whichever came first, and then they'd leave, perhaps hiding out for a little while in Diagon Alley until they were able to get on the Hogwarts Express.

With that in mind, Draco forced himself to calm down, and eventually drifted off into a restless, uneasy sleep.