The following on this story, for how long it's been up, is incredible! Thanks so much guys! I apologise for the late update; I've been working through some irl issues. Thanks for your support and patience, enjoy!

Draco sat in silence. He was twisting his hands together in a childish way, a habit he'd carried with him from his childhood to his teenage years. His coat hung around his shoulders, the fire crackling beside him. He knew the armchair was beneath him, supporting his body, but it almost felt like he was floating. His whole body felt tingly and strange, as if tiny spiders were crawling all over him.

The yellow light of the fire was the only source of illumination in the otherwise dark room. It was usually dark at five in the morning, but Draco could hardly sleep, let alone stand to be in bed for another second longer. He'd gotten up and dressed, and had found his way to his usual place for reading.

He didn't feel like picking up a book, though. Didn't feel like doing much of anything. His stomach was twisted into knots and butterflies felt like they were flying through all of his organs.

Stop being foolish.

His father's words rung like the orders of some sort of tyrant king, and he flinched, forcing his hands to stop moving, fixing his posture, gazing forward as if on instinct. For a few moments, he didn't realise that his father wasn't even present in the room, let alone anywhere near him. Draco winced.

Today was the day. The day. The day he was coming home. The boy.

Home. This was to be his home. It was an odd thought, but not an unpleasant one. His mother had found it irritating simply referring to him as 'the boy', but Draco felt clueless as to what else he could call him. He most certainly wasn't calling him what everyone else did, 63. He wasn't a number, he was a person. A living, breathing person, with feelings and thoughts like the rest of them.

His mother had suggested that Draco give him a name, but that felt somehow wrong, like he was naming a dog. He didn't feel as if he had the right to. It made Draco nauseous, how no one else seemed to treat him like an actual human. His father viewed him as an experiment gone wrong, something to be utilised and used, like he was a weapon of sorts. The people at Azkaban thought he was a monster, nothing more. A psychopath.

Both couldn't be further from the truth. Draco had come to learn many things about him. He was gentle and pleasant, even though he spoke nearly no words. Draco had only heard two words from him, 'hello', when Draco arrived one morning, and 'no', when Draco was leaving. He seemed very attached to Draco, he always grew anxious and upset when Draco had to leave, whining and crying until Draco stayed ten minutes longer. He fed off affection and attention, he thrived off it.

Draco was desperately hoping that this environment wouldn't undo all his hard work. That the yelling, the fights, the tension wouldn't make him revert back to what he was when Draco first saw him. He couldn't wait to unlock those chains around him, to see him dressed in normal clothes and not a demeaning straitjacket, to take off that blindfold he was wearing. He couldn't wait to see what the rest of his face looked like.

He sat in silence for what felt like ten years, but the steady ticking of the clock reminded him that it was only about an hour. Each tick seemed to set his nerves further on edge, the sound seeming unusually and unrealistically loud.

Finally he heard movement in the hallway. Slow, long and light steps. His shoulders relaxed slightly, it was his mother. She was dressed in her nightgown, her long, greying blonde hair down, messy. She saw him, and gave a small, nervous smile. "Good morning."

Draco couldn't seem to form words, so he just smiled weakly and nodded.

"Are you excited?"

Her words made him frown. Excited? Sort of, it was a mix of anxiety and excitement, apprehension and curiosity. Who knew what would happen? He gave a half nod, causing his mother to sigh and sit down on the couch.

"We'll look after him, alright? As far as I'm concerned, your father will have nothing to do with him," she spoke the words in a low, dangerous tone, almost a growl. Draco knew that no matter how much his mother tried to protect him, Lucius wouldn't be stopped. Whatever he wanted from him, he would stop at nothing to have.

"Your father will be up in about ten minutes to take you. When you get back, take him straight to his room and lock the door. I'll try and distract your father. God knows he doesn't need your father being the first thing he sees in years," she told him, and Draco nodded firmly.

"I will," he replied, forcing his voice not to shake as much as it wanted to. She gave him a proud look, something that made his cheeks flush with pride himself.

The ten minutes ticked by in bated breath and silence between the two, listening to the fire crackle and spit, finally hearing the grandfather clock chime loudly to signal it was 8:00. As if on cue, footsteps could be heard in the hallway. Heavy, dragging, accompanied by a third thump, a cane.

Lucius stepped into the room, his blond hair brushed to perfection, eyes clear, but somehow void. The grey eyes scanned over the room somewhat nonchalantly, passing over his wife without a second glance, finally falling onto his son. Draco resisted the urge to cringe under the crushing, overbearing weight of that gaze.

Normally children in this situation would look towards their other parent for help and consolidation. Draco had made that mistake once, and he wasn't about to make it again.

He held the eye contact, refusing to look away. It felt like he'd stared into those psychopathic, dead eyes for years, but truthfully it was only a few seconds.

"Are you prepared?" His voice was as cold as his eyes, a question Draco knew he only had one answer to, any other would result in bad things.

"Yes," he surprised himself with the firmness of his voice. He was determined now to let this man go nowhere near that boy. He'd stand between them if it came to it.

"Good. Let's go." He turned down the hallway and disappeared. Draco's mother stood up as he did, waking over to grab his hands in her own. Her's were cold.

"It'll be alright, Draco. I promise, we'll figure this out," she said gently but quickly, her expression giving away how uncertain she was about her own words.

"I know," Draco lied, letting go of her hands and turning towards the hallway his father had disappeared into previously.

******

The cell was as it had been all the times previous Draco had been here. Dark, cold, damp. It was like it's own depraved, decrepit corner of the world in some sort of parallel dimension that didn't belong in this one.

He was leaning against the wall where Draco had left him last time, breathing sharply. Lucius looked at him with a predatory look that Draco wanted to wipe off his face with his fists, but he gritted his teeth. Punching his father in the face in the middle of a high security prison probably wasn't the best idea. Victor stood behind them, looking on nervously as Draco approached him.

"Hey, it's me," he said, remembering to use that gentle, quiet and happy tone he'd taken to using when he was there, but today it felt horribly forced.

"Draco?" One of the only words he knew slipped from his cracked and scarred lips, and Draco couldn't help but smile. His tone, as well, seemed apprehensive and cautious. He could probably tell that there were other people in the room.

"You're coming home today," Draco crouched down beside him. "With me. You won't have to be here anymore."

The boy didn't reply. His mouth hung open slightly, as if he was stunned beyond comprehension at the words. "Home?" He croaked finally.

"Home, yes, your new home," Draco whispered, fiddling with the keys Victor had given him. One by one, the cuffs fell away. First around his neck, revealing bruised and cut skin. Then his wrists, and finally his ankles. He was trembling ferociously when he was finally free. "I'm going to have to carry you, okay? Is that alright?"

He gave a weakened nod, flinching slightly when Draco slipped one arm under his legs, using the other to support his upper body. He lifted him with unsurprising ease, the boy weighed almost nothing. Draco could tell he was behind terrified, his breathing uneven and quick, head buried in Draco's shoulder, trying to make himself as small as possible. Draco held him closer, not missing the sharp intake of breath from the boy in his arms when he started to walk towards his father and the prison caretaker.

His father still held that predatory look, but it was now filled with a slight disdain and resentful pity, like a lion watching a wounded gazelle. Draco had to hold in a growl of anger and instead turned away from his father slightly, shielding the boy from view. His father didn't miss the resentful gesture, and narrowed his eyes darkly.

Victor looked terrified, so much so that it was almost comical. Terrified of this tiny, shaking, nearly whimpering boy? Surely not.

And yet he was. He strayed away from him, as did all the dementors. They refused to come near them, and whenever one was around the boy's shaking got worse. He could tell they were there.

Draco knew he wasn't going to like the portkey. Who knew how he'd react? "Alright, this is going to feel very strange, but I've got you, okay? You're safe, I need you not to panic for me."

He gave the slightest of nods, but still seemed absolutely petrified.

******

His feet hit the carpeted floor of the Malfoy Manor with ease. He was used to portkeys now, he no longer fell onto the floor when faced with one. The boy, however, wasn't so well adapted. He was shaking and crying quietly, holding in his terror, no doubt because Draco had told him to.

"Lucius!" A voice, his mother's voice called, wafting from down the hallway. "Mr Goyle is here, he wants to speak to you! He says it's urgent."

Lucius scowled darkly, and Draco took the opportunity to disappear. He walked quickly towards the room reserved for him, shutting the door behind him, locking it. He forced his own panic to dissipate, he really didn't need to be freaking out whilst trying to get this unstable, terrified child not to freak out.

He set him down on the bed gently, and he refused to let go of Draco, whining quietly. The blindfold around his eyes was soaked through with his tears of terror. "It's alright, I'll take your blindfold off in a moment," Draco said, heart thumping as he pried the boy's hands off him and walked around the room, turning off the lights and closing the curtains. The light would surely blind him.

"I'm going to take this off now, alright? I need you to be brave for me, and not open your eyes as soon as I do. It'll hurt, so you have to open them slowly," Draco said the worlds carefully and clearly. He really didn't want a burst of pain throwing the boy into a further, and more dangerous panic.

Carefully Draco untied the blindfold, his hands trembling slightly out of the same feeling he'd experienced this morning. Anxiety and excitement.

He let the piece of material fall away.

He was ghastly pale, like a dead person, skin so washed out it was almost grey. His face was sculpted, with high cheekbones and a strong jawline, sunken in. His cheeks were tear stained, jagged scars coating his face in thin white lines. He had a youthful, childish look about him, yet with a strangely traumatised air. His eyes remained closed, but it was clear that he was trying very hard not to open them.

He was breathing heavily, and twitched nervously when Draco put a hand on his shoulder. His midnight black eyelashes fluttered, and his eyes opened.