A/N I hope this hasn't been done before. If it has, I apologise for being unoriginal and bad at writing. If it hasn't, yay! ^_^ Reviews are always appreciate, be they praise or criticism.

Disclaimer: The story is mine, the characters are JK Rowling's and Microsoft is Bill Gates'. Heh.

Seven Years of bad luck

Chapter one : Shards.

There was a place in the manor where Draco liked to go, sometimes. The only place where nobody could talk to him, and he could sit and think without being disturbed. It was a place tucked away from the rich, luxorious and clean splendour of the rest of the manor. It wasn't luxorious. In fact, it was downright dank and dirty. But Draco liked it.

The attic was a place where no-one, not even the house elf [1] went. It was full of old magic junk which Draco never touched, for fear of unleashing and possibly invoking some ancient Dark magic without meaning to. Draco, despite regular appearances, didn't mind the dark and the dust. It wasn't even that dark in there, not during the day, for it was right up in the roof where small streams of light could filter through. And besides, he could always fix any lighting obstacles with a flick of his wand.

He liked to sit in a corner of the attic, which you could only find if you pushed past the cobwebs, shuffled through the dust on the floorboards and shifted several boxes and bits of antique to get to. And besides, who would do that?

Draco called it his Thinking Corner. When his father was being tiresome and lashing out at him verbally, or when he simply felt fed up, he would find an excuse -whatever the situation- to slip away and come up to the attic. He would reflect upon life's little problems. His father. His mother. School. Lonliness. Lonliness was probably the worst of all, he always thought. His father, he could put up with that, cold treatment he had learnt to deal with. Just block up your ears and don't listen, he had always done. His mother was always away. Away. He suspected she may be having an affair, and if she was, that wouldn't surprise him. Or his father, for that matter, who also couldn't be trusted in a relationship.

School was okay.. It bored him, and it annoyed him, he had no real friends and he had always a reputation to look after. He could never do whatever he wanted, he always had to do something Malfoy-ish to avoid confrontation from his father, but at least at school he was away from family and holiday life there. Several hundred miles away was the way Draco liked his parents best. At school, even if he had no real friends to talk to, he could always play some Quidditch to free his mind or sit in the privacy of his own bed and read, or even better, think.

He had been brought up as Malfoy, not Draco. Taught to be ambitious, spiteful, proud, quick, cunning and insensitive. But most important of all, he was brought up to be the best. He had to be.

It was a Saturday. The sun was out, but a bitter temperature fought the sunlight. It was two days before Draco was due to return to Hogwarts for a new school year, his fifth. He was sitting in his corner, stretched out leisurely on a long low beam of wood, a blanket wrapped around his skinny figure, when something caught his eye. It was a flash of light.. quick, but bright. Curious, Draco slid the blanket off his shoulders and stood up. Making his way awkwardly, moving objects out of his path with his feet, Draco found the source of light. It was a mirror, tall and oval-shaped, with a golden frame and stand. The mirror itself was gleaming brightly under a layer of cobwebs, but Draco found it was not from reflected light…but the whole mirror seemed to shine with glowing radiance, every now and then giving off a twinkle of light.

Draco stayed where he was, afraid to go near it. Finally he edged in front of it, and chanced a glance. As soon as his eyes met the icy blue ones reflected in the mirror, a glare of red light shone out from the mirror for a few seconds, and Draco felt a breeze flow down his spine. Alarmed, he turned quickly and suddenly, tripped over a box, and flew headlong into the ground. His foot connected with the mirror stand and the large frame toppled and fell to the ground with an ear-splintering crash, shards of glass flying everywhere.

Draco shielded himself before looking up at the mess on the floor.

"Shit."

~*~

[1] Lots of people like to write that the Malfoys have a lot of house elves, but it's never stated in the books whether they have one or not, but Hogwarts has about a hundred, so I decided to give them just the one.