A/N: I'm really sorry I've missed a lot of updates, guys. My life has been hectic, I've been dealing with the loss of a pet recently, and school is really wearing me down, along with my job. I don't get paid for this and writers block is frequent so that doesn't help either, hence the short and uninspired chapters. I'll try to update whenever I can. Hope you enjoy.

Draco felt like he couldn't look away. He felt utterly captivated, even finding it difficult to blink. He'd never seen anyone with such green eyes, so vividly colourful, like two shimmering emeralds. They stood out in a shocking way against his pasty pale skin, he was almost a monochromatic person if not for his eyes.

Draco had always found his own eyes rather boring to look at. They were grey, sometimes a steely blue, but usually utterly colourless and pale. They didn't convey any emotion at all, that's how he'd made them, but this boy's? He hadn't seen such emotion in anyone's eyes in his entire life.

He was trembling viciously, his eyes wide as saucers, staring at Draco as if he'd never seen another person before, and was utterly stunned by the sight of it. He looked to be in absolute wonder, but hidden behind the awe was a sliver of fear, of apprehension and even... sadness. Despite everything that had happened to him, he looked sad. His lips were pulled downwards into a slight frown, his eyebrows furrowed.

He looked like some sort of wild child, with his wild black hair that hung down to the middle of his back, his terrible scars, and his inability to form words. Draco knew he'd need a haircut, but whether he'd let his mother go near him with scissors was another debate entirely.

"Draco?" He finally whispered. The word was cracked and hoarse from his lips, slightly terrified, but eager nonetheless. Draco couldn't help but grin, feeling a surge of something that felt like pride and warmth, but was a feeling he didn't know anything of.

"Yes, that's me, I'm Draco," the blond replied somewhat breathlessly, unable to stop his smile.

The boy turned his attention away from Draco for a few moments to stare around the room in disbelief, like he'd never been in a room like this, with a bed, windows, furniture. Perhaps cold walls were all he'd seen his entire life, cold walls and darkness.

He seemed immediately curious of the intricacies of everything, staring at the lace patterns on the bedsheets, the carvings on the wooden banisters. His life must have been so plain, so empty.

There was a soft, rhythmic knock on the door, Draco knowing it was his mother. The boy yelped in surprise at the sudden noise, shutting his eyes tightly and flinching as if he expected to be hit. Draco reached out to him gently. "Hey, it's alright, that just means someone wants to come in."

He opened his eyes slowly, seeming to take in the information before giving a silent, small nod. The door creaked open and he looked just as shocked as he had when he'd seen Draco, seeing Narcissa in the doorway.

She gave a small gasp herself, watching the feral looking child in a mixture of wonder and adoration. "Draco," she whispered, taking a few steps closer. "He's- I-" she didn't seem to be able to find the words.

"I know, right?" Draco smiled. There was a flicker of something, some sort of... recognition, perhaps, in the boy's bright green eyes when his mother spoke. He didn't seem as afraid of her as he was of the noise she'd made when knocking on the door.

"Can I come closer?" She asked, and Draco smiled, silently thanking her for her consideration. He was glad she understood how it would be easy to frighten him. Draco looked back towards him, seeing a certain curiosity in the boy's eyes. There wasn't much fear there, just a sense of something that almost seemed like longing.

Draco nodded slowly. "Hello," she said, sitting down on the floor in front of him. She was trying to make herself less threatening; smaller. "My name is Narcissa," she said, smiling. The boy watched her with his doe like green eyes, his gaze momentarily calculating, as if assessing the situation. Then his eyes softened somewhat, and Draco had a distinct feeling that he was remembering something. "We'd better find him some clothes, get him out of that horrible strait jacket," Narcissa said after a few moments to her son, who nodded in agreement.

******

Getting him out of that strait jacket and into other clothes had been a struggle, to say the least. After wearing only that for years he seemed terrified of normal clothes, and it took Draco ten minutes just to calm him down and make sure he didn't panic. Everything was terribly foreign to him and sometimes it was almost comical to see his reactions to things Draco thought were normal.

His mother, however, was handling him well. She was a mother, after all, so that's probably why she could anticipate his reactions to certain situations sometimes better than how Draco could. She sometimes seemed disheartened when he went to Draco for support instead of her, but she didn't seem terribly affected.

Currently he was sitting on his bed, his legs crossed, arms habitually wrapped around his chest even though they weren't bound there anymore. He seemed comfortable in this room, which Draco was glad of.

"Right," Narcissa sighed, seeming tired. He was tiring to deal with, but that was to be expected. At least they'd managed to get him settled in without the interference of Lucius. "What're we doing about that hair?"

Draco looked from his mother back to the boy, who watched them with his innocent, wide eyes, blinking. His hair was a wild black mess, hanging down to his lower back in length. It would need cutting, but Draco wasn't confident with taking anything sharp anywhere near him. Despite his childish appearance, he hadn't forgotten the warnings he'd been given about the boy, the danger he posed, the things he could do, and most of the time not at his own will. If he got too scared, who knows what could happen?

"We could try brushing it," Draco suggested, and his mother looked at him skeptically.

"I'll leave you to it, then," she said with a small smile. "I'd better go and hold off Lucius for as long as I can."

Draco nodded, watching his mother leave the room. He walked over to the dresser, the same dresser that stood in every room in the house, all duplicates with the same contents. They were for the guests mainly (when the manor had them), and all contained a few necessities, one of them being a hairbrush. Sure enough, there was one in the second drawer down.

He saw the hairbrush and flinched away from it, shutting his eyes tightly and recoiling as if he expected to be hit with it. Draco felt a pang of pity stab through his chest. "Hey, look," Draco said, lifting the brush to his own hair. The boy watched in silence as Draco ran it through his own hair. "See? It's fine, it doesn't hurt." Although, with the state of his hair, getting out those knots might be painful. Draco didn't know if he would even be able to.

It reminded him of a situation he'd found himself in when he was little. Pansy Parkinson, who he used to play with when he was very little, once got a wad of chewing gum stuck in her hair. Oh, how she'd cried and fretted over it. This was before the No-Nots spell was invented, and her hair had to be cut off because they couldn't get the chewing gum out. Draco had thought it ridiculously funny at the time, much to Pansy's anger.

They might have to cut off his hair. It hadn't been brushed or taken care of in so long; was there really any point in trying to save it? Again, his mind was drawn back to the dilemma with scissors. If he thought he was going to be hurt with a hairbrush, there was no hope in getting sharp objects anywhere near him.

The thought of the No Knots spell brought an idea to his mind. If anyone knew a spell for cutting hair without actually having to use scissors, it was his mother. He walked towards the door, but the boy's sharp protest of 'no' and his outstretched hand pulled Draco back.

He didn't want to be alone.

Draco folded his arms across his chest. Scissors it was.

Carefully he helped the boy into the adjoining bathroom, sitting him down on the edge of the bathtub. His lack of ability to move on his own simply reminded Draco of all the things he was going to have to be taught. He didn't even have enough strength yet to support his own weight.

He'd reacted rather negatively to the mirror previously, so Draco made sure to keep it out of sight. He seemed terrified of himself.

He picked up the pair of scissors on the bench by the sink, and watched them apprehensively for a few seconds. He didn't know how to cut hair, but nothing could be worse than what it was like now. Sure enough, as soon as he saw the scissors he let out a gasp of terror and in his haste to get away fell into the bathtub, letting out a cry of pain.

This wasn't going too great. Draco quickly helped him back up and did his best to comfort him, but knew it was going to be difficult to get those scissors anywhere near his head. His demonstration with the hairbrush previously gave him an idea, and although he hated it, he knew it might be the only thing to work.

"Look," Draco gestured to the scissors, lifting them to his own blond fringe, trying not to cringe about what he was about to do. He loved his hair, he took a lot of pride in his appearance. The boy's already huge eyes widened as Draco closed the scissors, a satisfying cutting noise sounding. Draco held up the lock of white-blond hair, showing it to the boy. "See? Doesn't hurt, just cuts the hair off." To his surprise, he reached out, silently asking for the lock of hair Draco was holding. He raised an eyebrow but gave it to him, the boy staring, bewildered at the hair that had been attached to Draco's head only a few seconds ago.

Draco knelt down to face him, giving him the most comforting smile he could. "It doesn't hurt, I promise, I wouldn't hurt you, alright? It's just cutting off your hair so you'll feel better."

The boy bit his lip, unsure. There was a period of silence in which neither moved, the boy's eyes flickering contemplatively between the scissors in Draco's hand and Draco's hair, still clutched in his own. Finally, he gave a weak, nervous nod.

Draco sighed in relief. Right, now, everything here had to go exactly according to plan. If it didn't, Draco didn't even want to know what might happen.

He lifted the scissors to his raven black hair, matted and knotted beyond saving. The boy had his eyes shut tightly, shrinking away from the scissors, trying to pretend they weren't there. Draco felt horrible as he started cutting his hair, the boy looking like he was almost about to start crying before he realised it didn't hurt, at which point he opened his green eyes and curiously watched his black hair fall into the bathtub.

It took over an hour and a half, but soon he was left with short, spiky, rather messily cut hair. The bathtub was filled with it, and Draco turned the water on to wash it down the drain.

"See? Not too bad," Draco said, watching the boy lift his shaky, pale and bony hands to his now short hair, touching it gently, frowning in confusion. His head probably felt a lot lighter.

He looked up at Draco with an odd expression, somewhat unsure, yet at the same time relatively content.