AN: First part of two, unbeta'd :) Feedback is welcome ^_^

The first time Draco Malfoy meets Harry Potter he knows he's met someone special, even though at the time he doesn't even know his name.

He knows this because Adrasteia, an arctic fox sat at his feet, actually plays with Neala. Well, plays as much as Adrasteia does play, which involves batting at the little squirrel and chasing her around the shop. Usually Addie will stay beside him barely sparing other daemons a glance before huffing and turning away from them. And it's nice, playing that is. The boy's daemon becomes a small brown fox and the two foxes wrestle about mock snarling and laughing. Draco smiles.

But then his mother and her swan daemon, Silvain come to meet them and Adrasteia leaps away from the fox guiltily and scurries back to Draco, flowing up his arm as an ermine.

"What was that all about?" he asks quietly as they trail after Narcissa.

Adrasteia looks at him, "What was what all about?"

"You know that. Addie, you liked that other boy's daemon," Draco teases.

She bristles and changes from an ermine to a dove. "No, I didn't Draco," she says huffily. "I was just bored." And with that she leaves his shoulder to flutter above his head and Draco sniggers.

When they realise that the scrawny boy they met was Harry Potter Adrasteia grins, "Bet you wish you were as friendly as I was."

"Oh, do shut up," he hisses to her. She snaps at him playfully, she's an arctic fox again. She likes that form and Draco likes it to, he half hopes she'll settle as something bigger though.

She turns in to a snowy owl when they spot Harry among the new students and they approach him flanked by Crabbe and Goyle and their bulldog daemons. When they find out he's befriended the youngest Weasley boy they both scoff, especially when they see that the boy's daemon is a scruffy beagle.

"They're always dogs," Adrasteia says. "So dull."

Draco hums in agreement and they offer Harry their friendship.

"I think I can tell the wrong sort for myself, thanks," Harry says, refusing Draco's hand and Neala hisses as a mangy tabby beside the Weasley's beagle.

Adrasteia drops to the floor and becomes an arctic wolf and everyone around them gasps. Daemons aren't meant to become wolves, it shows wildness, savageness; it shows something is horribly wrong. But it feels right and Draco smiles.

Ron takes an involuntary step back, his daemon shifting in to a crow that took off with a startled caw but Harry looks impassively at the wolf and Neala bristles but doesn't change form. Adrasteia growls and they probably would have fought but McGonagall arrives and Adrasteia shrinks quickly in to her fox shape and leaps on to Draco's shoulder.

"I hate them," she spits later on that night when they're sprawled across their bed in Slytherin. She's a wolf again and the curtains are drawn so no one can see.

Draco runs a hand through her snowy fur, "It'll be okay, Addie." He soothes. He's worried about how upset his daemon really is so he changes the subject.

"Do you think you'll settle like this?" he asks quietly. He doesn't care if the most prolific person in the wizarding world with a wolf daemon was Grindlewald. He loves her like this, beautiful and powerful. Father would like it to, mother not so much. She'd be too worried about the implications.

She flicked her ears and shook her head, "No, sorry Draco."

Draco nods and tries not to look too disappointed and Adrasteia takes the form of an arctic wolf more and more after that.

When Draco starts his fifth year and Adrasteia still hasn't settled he starts to worry. Everyone else in his year is settled already. Pansy's Shax settled in third year as an irritating black and tan pug that liked to press himself against Adrasteia, so had Blaise's Harmonia as a beautiful emerald serpent. Crabbe and Goyles' daemons had both settled in their third year as a bulldog and boxer respectfully.

Everyone's daemons had settled. they think about pretending Adrasteia is settled, because who would know? The only thing is they can't decide what to be and nothing feels right.

"We're not a wolf," she murmurs.

He runs a hand through her beautiful striped fur, "We're not a tiger either." He mumbles back, he wishes they were though.

"What are we?" she asks pensively.

"A mouse," Draco whispers softly. "A snake, a ferret. Something slimy and cowardly."

Adrasteia lifts her head and snaps at him. "No, Draco." She growls.

His parents were getting worried; they had sent him to three specialists during the summer break, but Draco's pretty sure that was mostly to get him away from the house. He knows Harry's telling the truth about Voldermort being back.

He knows it in the way Silvain refuses to touch or even look at his father's snow leopard daemon, Kali. He knows it by the way Kali's fur has faded, how her eyes have gone dull, how she trails after Lucius with her tail held low and her ears down.

They hear them argue one night when they're crouched in a darkened corridor.

"You can't work for him again!" his mother cries and Adrasteia presses herself closer to him as a white tiger. They've never heard their mother raise her voice before.

"I don't have any other choice, Narcissa," his father replies quietly and Kali growls low and warning.

"We could leave," she whispers. "We could just take Draco and go."

Adrasteia nuzzles him, "Draco, we should leave." She whispers. When he doesn't move she tugs at him and eventually he follows her through the manor to his room, one hand fisted in her thick fur.

They don't talk about it until they're back at Hogwarts.

They're on the astronomy tower. Draco loves it up here; it's quiet, secluded and beautiful. Adrasteia is soaring across the grounds as an osprey, he can feel her tugging at their bond but it's dulled by the overwhelming sense of freedom he can feel through her.

She's been a bird more and more often lately.

"Do you think you'll be a bird when you settle?" he asks, stroking her soft feathers absently when she landed beside him.

She clacks her beak, "I'd like that, I think. Then we wouldn't have to give up Quidditch at least."

He nods. If your daemon settled as something too large to sit on your broom with you or unable to fly your Quidditch days were pretty much over, unless you went through the arduous and painful process of stretching the bond between you. Draco shivers at the thought and Adrasteia presses herself closer to him.

"Addie," Draco asks softly. "What should we do?"

What should we do about Father? What should we do about Voldermort? What should we do about settling? What should we do?

Adrasteia changes in to an arctic fox and licks his cheek. "I don't know, Draco."

She settles on the evening after the first winter snow.

Draco's always loved the snow. He loves the way it covers the world like a blanket, cleansing and purifying. He loves the silence that accompanies it and the way it crunches gently under his boots. But mostly he loves the way Adrasteia loses all her self control and bounds through it with unbridled glee like a hyperactive child.

They're lying on their backs, Adrasteia as an ermine resting on his chest, watching the snow fall. Narcissa and Silvain used to scream themselves horse about it but Draco never really felt the cold. It doesn't happen in some blaze of glory like some people's settling does, it's not dramatic, it just happens.

Draco runs his hands through her thick fur, "I think I'll miss it," he says quietly.

"Miss what?" she asks sleepily.

"I'll miss you being able to change," he says sitting up. She slides off his chest gracefully and turns in to a white cat. He leans forwards and shivers. "If you could be anything, Addie, what you be?"

She cocks her head to the side and flicks her tail, "Something to keep you warm." She says with a smirk.

He laughs and he expects her to shift in to her wolf form or maybe a tiger or lion but she doesn't. She changes in to a bird, a huge, black bird that seems to radiate heat. He gasps and reaches out hesitantly to stroke her feathers; she's never taken this form before. Closer up he sees her feathers aren't black they're made up of a multitude of sifting colours, like petrol on water.

She shudders when he touches her, "Draco, I think this is it."

Draco doesn't quite believe because how can a part of him be so beautiful and brave and free? "A phoenix," he whispers. "You're a phoenix."

She leans in to his touch, "You're a phoenix too, Draco."

When they get back to the common room Pansy and Shax are waiting for them. She's mostly over Draco now. Mostly. She stands up, face stern, hands on hips, ready to scold him for sneaking out yet again, but then she sees Adrasteia perched on Draco's shoulder.

Draco's swelling of pride vanishes.

She gapes and Shax whines. "Draco! She's a- a phoenix!" she squeaks.

Adrasteia huffs and swoops off Draco's shoulder to perch on top of the fire place.

"Is she settled?" Pansy asks still staring at her. When Draco nods, she says, "Ah."

A phoenix; such a Gryffindor animal, and a black one at that. It wouldn't matter to the world that Adrasteia was beautiful and strong and unique. All they'd see was a Malfoy with a daemon horribly wrong for him.

And what will his parents think?

He doesn't tell them she's settled, he figures he'll cross that bridge when he goes home for the summer. Adrasteia snaps at him whenever he thinks about it. His mother won't mind, his father might just die of shame. Draco spends so much time worrying about it even Theodore Nott starts getting concerned about them.

And then suddenly it doesn't seem to matter anymore and their world starts to disintegrate.

Draco finds out about his father's arrest in the Daily Prophet the morning after it happens.

He notices something's wrong when everyone stops talking and stares at him when he walks in to the Great Hall for breakfast. Pansy snatches up the paper and Shax whines at her feet, "Draco, Draco, I'm sorry," she says.

When he sees his father's picture staring back at him he gets on the first train to Wiltshire. It takes Narcissa a week to realise Adrasteia has settled and even then she doesn't say anything, they have bigger things to worry about.

Most of the Death Eaters have spiders or snakes or scorpion daemons, something small and deadly, something easily hidden. Fenris Greyback has, aptly, a mangy Gray wolf that leers and snaps at any daemon that gets close. His aunt Bellatix has a gangly black cat that cackles and likes to catch other daemons between his teeth.

Adrasteia is bigger than most of their daemons but Draco still shudders at thought of any of them. Their poison, their fangs. The Death Eaters daemons like to play a game; they like to sneak up on Adrasteia, the spiders and scorpions sting her, the snakes drop out of nowhere and coil around her throat, Fenris' Haiti snatches her by the wing and shakes and Bellatrix's Dionysus likes to pull out her feathers.

Draco feels every, single, thing.

Addie could fight them off. Addie could snap them in two.

But they can't.

If they do, they're dead. Their mother's dead.

So they do nothing, they let it happen, they let worse happen. They cower and curse themselves, no doubt saint Potter and his scrawny rabbit would have already saved the world.

Draco contents himself with thinking up really imaginative deaths for everyone who touches them. They start getting used to it, to the atmosphere of fear that has become their lives, and then they meet Voldermort.

They're assembled in what used to be their dining room. Bellatrix is sauntering around the room, Di at her heels, making sure everyone is presentable. His mother puts a hand on his shoulder, "I'm sorry, Draco," she whispers. "You shouldn't have to be here."

Voldermort appears in the middle of the room in a cloud of black mist and Draco recoils immediately.

The Dark Lord is accompanied as always by his huge snake, Nagini. The snake Draco had always assumed was his daemon. But now Draco could feel it, the emptiness, the wrongness. It was abject, it was other, it was impossible.

On his shoulder Adrasteia digs her claws in hard enough to draw blood and presses herself to him, trembling.

Voldermort didn't have a daemon.

He strides across the room, smiling eerily and a hush falls across the room. "Ah, Draco," he purrs. "You look so like your father." with one skeletal, white hand he caressed Draco's cheek and it takes all Draco has not to flinch.

Voldermort grins and turns away and what happens next is so fast Draco doesn't even see it. Greyback's Haiti leaps and captures Adrasteia in her jaws before trotting back to her human. Draco cries out in pain, "Addie! Please don't hurt her."

Voldermort grins at Draco's outburst and walks over to the wolf still holding Adrasteia firmly between her jaws and Fenris laughs. "Interesting, isn't it?" the Dark Lord says, "That out daemons can be our greatest strength and yet our greatest weaknesses, isn't it Draco?"

He knells down, as though to inspect the daemon further. "Now, your father's daemon is beautiful. Yours is too, I suppose. A phoenix? Interesting. And such lovely colouring."

He reaches out

And Draco almost falls over.

Lord Voldermort stands up holding the phoenix.

Holding Draco's daemon.

"I have a task for you, Draco," Voldermort says, stroking Adrasteia fur.

Draco sways, he feels nauseas, he feels faint. He stumbles back, "You can't...You shouldn't...Let her go," he mumbles. "Let her go, please."

Voldermort grins and without warning twists one of Adrasteia wings, he starts to back away, tugging at the bond between Draco and Adrasteia.

The pain is blinding and Draco crumples.

Addie twists weakly, "Draco!"

"Will you do exactly as I say?" Voldermort asks.

"Yes, yes," Draco gasps. "Yes, anything. Just let her go!"

Voldermort smiles.