Written for MuggleNet Fanfiction's Winter Snows Holiday Challenge #1: Redemption 'It's New Year's Eve, late at night, and most of the world is out and about, except for two people. One person is lost emotionally, perhaps beyond all mortal repair, and another one is up, unable to sleep, just sitting. What happens when the two meet?'

The town celebrated just as it would every year. Cheering, joyous singing, and partying could be heard from quite a distance away. It was the evening now on New Year's Eve and despite the chilly, windy, weather everyone was still having a great time. Everyone, that was, except one person. He wasn't an ordinary person, though, and he lived up on the hill a bit away from the small town. Up on the hill there was a great manor that everyone avoided. There were ghost stories and other rumors circulating about the place, but even those who boasted that they would go up there and confront the invisible demons never ended up going to the house all the way. They'd get close, but turn back in a daze and then pretend they were never going there in the first place. It was like the place was surrounded by magic that kept people away, but everyone knew that was impossible so they chose not to talk about it.

Despite the happy and carefree attitude of all the Muggles below, Draco Malfoy was definitely not happy. In fact, he was in a deep depression. He stood on the balcony that was easily accessed from his room, which was one of the many perks of being from a rich family, and looked straight into the fierce wind. The snow that hit his cheeks stung with a cold fury and the wind that followed added a biting sensation. He also gripped the icy railing with his bare hands. He owned dragonhide gloves, of course, but after what he had just done frost bite wasn't enough of a punishment. He had his Slytherin scarf draped around his shoulders, but he refused to use it to comfort himself. Draco Malfoy knew that he did not deserve to be comforted.

Draco Malfoy had failed the tests of friendship, and, most importantly of all, family. There had been a battle only a few hours ago between the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix in which Draco had, in a single act, become a complete traitor. He had turned his back on his friends and family. And now he waited to die. Draco hadn't simply disobeyed orders. There was far more to it than that. His father, his own father, had attempted to kill an innocent hostage, and a muggle child at that, if Harry Potter didn't surrender. Harry Potter didn't surrender and Lucius Malfoy was about to kill the girl when Draco took action. He didn't mean to kill his father, but Sectumsempra was hardly the most forgiving curse.

He sank to his knees in the fresh snow that had accumulated on the balcony and let his head rest against the frigid hand rail. It was over, all over. Someone would come for him soon. Either Snape or perhaps his Aunt Bellatrix, but someone would come. He'd be taken to the Dark Lord and, if he was lucky, swiftly killed. Most likely he'd be tortured to the brink of insanity.

The wind kept biting at his face, but he knew he'd better get used to it. After all, he had failed country, friendship, and family. There was only one place left for him to go. Draco knew that it would suit him. He wished his eyes were already frozen shut by an eternally cold wind and his mouth equally sealed. Then he wouldn't have to face his mother. A few tears rolled down his cheek, fell off his chin, and melted some holes in the snow by his knees.

"Draco?"

Draco closed his eyes and for a few moments and tried to strike up the courage to confront her.

"Draco! Are you alright? You'll catch cold!" A woman dressed in dark green robes quickly strode on to the balcony and bent down beside her son. Her long blonde hair quickly became matted with large flakes of fluffy snow.

He knew that he couldn't really look at her, but he had to talk. "Mum... you don't want to talk to me," he choked out as more tears fell down his face. Since he was a child, Narcissa Malfoy was the only person to ever see Draco cry, unless you counted Moaning Myrtle as a person.

Narcissa quickly withdrew her wand and gave it a wave to conjure a green blanket. She draped it around her son's body. "Why wouldn't I want to talk to you? What happened?" She pulled his forehead away from the iron railing, but left a strip of skin stuck to it. She swore under her breath and quickly pointed her wand at Draco's forehead. She healed the wound in a second, but Draco wished she had let it stay. After all, he deserved it.

"I... I killed..." Draco's voice gave out. He tried ball his hands to build up the strength to tell her, but they were too badly frozen and frostbitten by the harsh cold of the night.

"Killed?" Narcissa's voice rang with alarm and concern. "You...," she said as she composed her face and tried to hide her worry. "Did it happen during your mission tonight? Did anyone see you?"

Draco's defeated reply came after a moment of silence. "Yes..., but it doesn't matter..."

"Doesn't matter?" interrupted Narcissa quickly. She bit her lower lip in worry and tried to think of a way to protect her son from the Aurors. "We'll be fine, Draco, don't worry." She tried to sound confident, but the fear was evident in her voice.

Shaking his head slowly, Draco gave his mother a small smile. His pale grey eyes were still and hollow as if he had given up on life altogether. "Mum..." he began, taking a breath as some more tears rolled down his cheeks. They were turning from their bright pink color to a ghostly white. "I... I killed Dad." His eyes fell and gazed down at his lap. His mother was the only person he'd dare call his father 'dad' in front of.

Narcissa's lips drew into a thin line as her mind furiously processed that information. She let out a long breath, which was very visible due to the air, and sank down to her knees beside her son. It didn't matter to her that the snow was soaking through her robes and freezing against her otherwise bare knees. What mattered was her son. "Why?" she managed to ask eventually after opening and closing her mouth a few times while trying to find the right words that never came.

"He was about to kill a little girl," Draco blurted out all of a sudden as he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his cloak. "She was a Muggle." He added the last comment softly and cringed as if he expected his mother to hit him.

To Draco's surprise his mother merely nodded silently and closed her eyes to think for a few moments. She shivered, probably due to the thin robes she was wearing herself.

"When is Aunt Bella coming to kill me?" the boy asked solemnly in a resigned sort of way.

This caused Narcissa's eyes to open back up and gazed at her son sadly. "Kill you? Why would Bellatrix kill you?"

"I killed Dad. He was trying to make Potter surrender, but Potter wasn't going to. He was going to kill that girl, but I couldn't let him. I betrayed the Dark Lord. I killed my father. I've let both the Dark Lord and you down. You should turn me in so he won't take it out on you too," Draco croaked. He coughed directly after and then sniffled.

This time Narcissa Malfoy did strike her son. Her hand connected against Draco's cheek with a loud slap. Her eyes blazed with anger behind the unshed tears that were fighting to be released. In the distance the celebrations of the New Year continued with laughter and music. The worst part was that Draco didn't even flinch. "Do not think for a minute I'd leave you to die, or worse, turn you in for your death! You're my son!" she yelled. The tears began to roll down her pink cheeks now and drip from her chin to her lap. Without warning she lunged forward and embraced her son, though he didn't even react, in a crushing hug.

Draco's head freely fell to his mother's shoulder and rested there for the duration of the embrace. He made no attempt to hug her back. He didn't deserve to. He had betrayed his family. "But, Dad-"

His mother didn't let him finish the sentence as she pulled away and held him by his shoulders at arms length. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself! You know as well as I do that Lucius, your father, wasn't human! Well, human like he once was..." She stopped, her chest heaving rather heavily. Her own tears continued to stain her face as she looked at her son straight in the eyes in the hopes of seeing a flicker of life.

For another long stretch of silence, in which the crowds of happy people down below in the town were heard once again as if to offset the depressed mood at Malfoy Manor, Draco simply gazed at his mother. He had nearly always known her to look dignified and regal, but now she was completely the opposite. Her hair was wet and messed up with the golden blonde streaks falling every which way over her shoulders and face. Her cheeks were no longer the royalty-like pristine white, but a mixture of pink and red from the biting wind. Her clothes were soaking wet and she was kneeling the snow. It was also all because of him. Her eyes, though, her eyes were still as full of life as they always were. "I... I'm not sure what you mean. I killed someone. I couldn't... I couldn't before..."

"Dumbledore was a good man," his mother stated without hesitation. Draco's mouth fell open slightly at her comment. She'd never dared say anything like this before. "While I and your father didn't share his views on muggleborns and muggles in general, he was still a good person at heart. He had different ideals, but it wasn't hard to see that he meant well. You couldn't kill him because you knew it, too."

Draco didn't say anything in reply, but merely inclined his head slightly before a rather large gust of wind blew his scarf wildly and pulled it across his face. He reached up and fought with it for a minute against the wind and eventually pulled it entirely off and clutched it in his hands. He looked back up at his mother and caught a small, but amused smile on her face. If his face wasn't riddled by frost bite, perhaps he would have reddened with embarrassment, if even just a little.

"Your father wasn't human anymore. He lost his humanity before you were born." She sighed while possibly remembering the past. She caught Draco looking at her with some degree of confusion. The fact that his eyes weren't looking lifeless anymore made Narcissa slightly relieved. "Let me explain. When I first met your father, I was just starting at Hogwarts. He was three years ahead of me. Handsome, rich, and he had a good sense of tradition. When I was in fourth year and he was in his seventh, I was already in love. School girl love, yes, but he actually showed some interest in me as well. In my sixth year, he actually sent me an owl saying that now that I was a more proper age he wouldn't feel guilty about wanting to escort me to Hogsmeade. From then on we were a perfect couple. He was romantic. He knew how to please me. We got married the year after I graduated from Hogwarts." She paused and noticed Draco was following with explicit attention. "It was then that he started to slip. He began to fall in with the Dark Lord, although I didn't know it at the time. His views towards muggles and muggleborns changed from a dislike that many purebloods shared to an outright hatred. My sisters and I disliked muggleborns, yes, I admit, but even the muggle royal family doesn't taint their bloodline. It is a matter of pride and tradition. Before I knew it, your father had slipped beyond my control and turned in to the monster that you knew." Narcissa shivered from the cold and her own sadness. Her tears now reflected the way her deceased husband had originally acted and his descent into a cruel murderer as well as her son's plight.

Seeing his mother begin to break down, Draco shook his head. "I'm worse than Dad. I'm a murderer too, now," he said in a monotone. He hung his head in shame. "I'm worse because I betrayed my family and friends. I killed my own father."

As quickly as he finished, Draco looked back up in time to see his mother raise her hand again for a second slap. He didn't flinch or move away this time either, but Narcissa's arm went limp and fell to her side without striking. She closed her eyes and sighed before grabbing Draco's shoulders once again.

"You are far better than Lucius. The fact that you feel this way means you are. You killed Lucius, but Lucius wasn't a person. He was corrupted. He murdered. He tortured. He had no other purpose in life anymore. He was influenced too greatly by the Dark Arts that he and the other Death Eaters used," she reached down and grabbed the corner of the Slytherin scarf in her son's clutches and dabbed her eyes with it. "You chose to kill a monster to save a life. You chose to be different than your father."

"Mum, I...," he stopped again and hung his head. "I still betrayed you and our family."

"Have you been listening to me?" Narcissa shrieked with tears streaking down her cheeks in a near constant flow. "You didn't betray me! You saved me from years of worry and unhappiness! I saw the way Lucius treated you and forced you to act! I saw what was happening! Then, imagine how I felt when the Dark Lord forced you to go after Dumbledore! I was a complete wreck!" She embraced her son again, holding him tightly against her. "You chose to be different than Lucius! You aren't him at all. You're far, far, better."

"Mum... I don't know what to do..." Draco croaked as he rested his head on his mother's shoulder. "I'm already dead. The Dark Lord will kill me."

Holding Draco at arms length again, Narcissa fiercely shook her head. "You can do anything you want to do. I'll always be there. I'm proud of the choice you've made. Do you hear me, Draco? Proud. You can do anything you want and I'll be there for you! Do you know why? Because you're my son! I'd never turn my back on you for any reason."

Embracing her fully on without his mother's initiation, Draco nodded. "I'm sorry, mum," he said somewhat sheepishly. He blew his nose on the scarf in his hand and shivered for the first time that night. He realized it was really quite cold out.

"Don't be sorry. Just don't doubt yourself again," Narcissa said while she ran a hand through her son's hair to remove some of the snow and ice that was trapped in the wet silver blond mess.

"I'm still dead, though. The Dark Lord... he'll be here soon. Or Aunt Bella. Or Macnair, or someone else..." Draco said, sighing, although it wasn't a hopeless sigh anymore.

Narcissa abruptly stood and pulled Draco to his feet. Both of them were soaked and shivering, but it hardly mattered right now. "Go. Pack some things. We'll leave here and never return. We'll go where the Dark Lord and Bellatrix can't find us. We can go anywhere and you can do whatever you want." She urged him towards the doorway to his room, but he resisted. She looked at him frantically, yet quizzically at the same time.

"I don't need anything," he stated strongly. "It'll just remind me of-" he hesitated and looked for the right word. "It'll remind me of things I don't want to remember, mum."

"I understand," Narcissa replied as she took out her wand again from a pocket in her robes. "Come; grab a hold of my arm. We have to leave as quickly as possible."

Draco moved to his mother's side and gripped her arm with his frozen hand. It hurt to move it and the wind still stung, but he grabbed his lifeline anyways. Absentmindedly he released his grip on the Slytherin scarf and let it catch in the wind to sail away. While his mother was preparing to Apparate them far away, he watched the scarf spiral around in the updrafts and currents of the same wind that had tormented him for the last hour. The last he saw of his Slytherin scarf was when it fluttered down towards the ground and out of his sight. As his eyes lingered towards the spot where the scarf had disappeared he saw three figures wearing dark cloaks appear on the path that led up to Malfoy Manor. He gave a grim snort towards the figures and turned his back to them so he could stand beside his mother high above ground level on the balcony.

Somewhere off in the distance bells rang loudly and some muggle fireworks erupted into the darkened skies. The sky was illuminated an assortment of different colors as Narcissa Malfoy began to count down from five. Draco Malfoy knew that he had a chance, albeit a small one, to lead a different life.

The end.