A/N: Written some odd years ago and only recently rediscovered on my hard drive.

"Draco," his mother's voice called from the other side of his bedroom door. Draco glared at the door, but did not tell her to come in. "Draco, darling, the party is going to start soon. Why don't you put on the costume that your father purchased for you, and come down to help us prepare?"

He did not grace her with a reply, merely continued to look at the door sullenly from where he lay atop his bed.

"Honey," Narcissa sighed, "I know you said that you're too old for participating in Halloween, but I just don't understand why. There are many witches and wizards older than you still celebrating, including your father and I – and all the other people who will be coming to tonight."

Still, Draco didn't respond.

"You'll have a good time," she cajoled. "You've always had a good time in past years."

Silence.

Clearly getting tired of talking to a closed door, Narcissa opened aforementioned door and stepped inside of Draco's room.

"It's impolite not to knock before entering a room," Draco recited for her dully.

Narcissa gave him one of those infamous looks that only mothers can imitate, seemed to consider saying something in return, and then decided against it, choosing instead to smooth out the slight creases in her clothes. She was already dressed in her costume for tonight's party at Malfoy Manor: a white, shimmering gown with a skirt so full it must have had a radius of five meters. Her hair was twisted up into a bun, and around her head was a wreath of flowers that the house-elves had obviously put together.

She was, it soon became clear in Draco's mind, dressed as a narcissus flower. Clever.

"Please, Draco," she said. "This is your last Halloween at Malfoy Manor – next year, you'll be at Hogwarts at this time. Put on your costume and come down to celebrate with us."

Draco sat up. "I am not wearing that." He pointed with disgust at the outfit hanging on his closet door. Hanging there, silent and horrendous, was a padded costume intended to look like a dragon. Green silk with sparkling scales covered the majority of the body, switching smoothly to yellow where the dragon's stomach was. The feet of the costume were attached, duck-shaped green flippers with little claws. A tail covered with fake spikes protruded from the lower end, swaying of its own accord every few minutes. As if this was not bad enough for a ten-year-old boy, the outfit came with a matching green mask that covered half of his face, and from the lower end of said mask protruded a long snout, which periodically blew steam from its nostrils.

Narcissa seemed surprised at his reaction. "Why not?"

"It's – it's – " He could not think of a word terrible enough to describe the costume. "It's completely and hideously awful!" he finally exclaimed.

Her expression turned stern, cold, and he knew instantly that she was done with coaxing him: now she would merely demand.

"I am going to leave your room," she said in a soft, unwavering tone, "and I expect to see you downstairs with both the costume and a cheerful attitude upon you within five minutes." With that, she swept out of the room.

When she used that voice, there was no point in arguing over the matter; so Draco reluctantly put on his costume and ventured into the Malfoy ballroom. Narcissa, fussing with the house-elves over the stuffed mushrooms at the hors d'oeuvre table, spared him a brief smile and wave before returning to her current task.

"You look very impressive in that costume, Draco," said his father from behind him.

"I look ridiculous," Draco muttered, turning to face Lucius, whose brow creased at this statement.

"Nonsense. The look flatters you, and you look extremely handsome."

Draco found these words hard to take seriously considering that the man who spoke them was currently dressed in a white suit with feathers sticking out from his behind (Lucius was supposed to be a peacock). But the boy held his tongue, bowed to excuse himself from his father's presence, and moved on.

A stream of guests slowly began to trickle in as the party hour drew nearer. Draco, humiliated and sullen, remained in the corner. Hopefully Crabbe and Goyle would show up in equally ridiculous costumes. That would make it all a bit better. Maybe Pansy too. But then, even if Pansy looked ridiculous, that wouldn't stop her from ranting about how someone else looked ridiculous. Too busy sulking, he didn't immediately notice his playmates come over to him.

"Where did you get that, Draco?" Pansy asked with a loud snort. "Looks like something a Muggle might wear – a really poor Muggle."

From the mask that Draco was wearing came a spurt of steam between the nostrils as he turned towards them, which only caused Pansy to collapse into giggles.

"My father purchased it at the best wizarding clothes store in all of Scotland," Draco said pompously. He may not have liked the outfit, but he wasn't about to be degraded in front of his peers: that was simply not the Malfoy way. "They sell only quality items there," he added, giving a pointed look at her own costume.

She scowled at him; it was clear that wearing a puffy, pink princess dress had been her parents' idea, not hers. "Well, at least I don't have a tail."

"At least I'm not wearing pink."

"At least I'm not a slimy little – "

Crabbe, ever the mediator between fights, decided to intervene. "Hey, what's this?" he asked Draco, holding up a hors d'oeuvre shaped something like a corkscrew.

"I don't know," Draco answered, giving a final glare to Pansy before moving closer to Crabbe to play a good host. "I think Mother said it was something with cheese."

Crabbe considered the item for a minute, shrugged to himself, and popped it in his mouth. "'S'good," he managed to say with his mouth full as he dove back towards the hors d'oeuvre table; Goyle lunged after him.

Pansy rolled her eyes and mumbled something that sounded a good deal like, "Boys."

"At least they both have decent costumes," Draco intoned slyly.

"Oh, for Salazar's sake, their costumes are awful – I bet you couldn't even tell me what they're supposed to be."

He could think of no way to argue with this fact: both Crabbe and Goyle were in similar outfits, but he couldn't for the life of him identify what exactly those outfits were meant to resemble. His best guess would have been misshapen, colorful potatoes.

"You know what I've always wondered?" Pansy said musingly, plucking at a loose string on her costume. He turned his gaze to her with mild disdain, bracing himself to be insulted yet again and getting prepared to snub her right back, but she did not have her usual taunting sneer on her face, or even the slightest trace of a jeer to her tone.

"What?" Draco asked her.

"Well, we've been having these Halloween parties at your home for as long as I can remember. Longer. But . . ." Her volume lowered. "Sometimes I wonder if we should really be celebrating."

Draco didn't understand where she was going with this. "What do you mean?"

She looked up from her loose string, her gaze dark and meaningful. "Come on, Draco, isn't it obvious? I'm talking about the Dark Lord. This was the night all those years ago that he. . . . Is that really a cause for a party?"

"No, of course not. But we've got to do as we have always done even before the Dark Lord's time," said Draco lowly, quoting what his parents had always told him. "We've got to make as though everything is just as it was before. There are people here who never supported him – if they knew what our parents had once done of their own free will . . ." He drew a purposeful hand over his foam-covered neck like a knife.

"Still," said Pansy, looking almost troubled, "still . . . it doesn't seem right, somehow, that we can celebrate knowing what happened on this night nine years ago."

He wasn't used to seeing her look so serious, and it bothered him for some reason. "We've got to keep up our images. If we don't, we'd lose – well, everything – and – "

Something grabbed him by the shoulders from behind; Draco yelped, a magical current zipping through his body and giving the mysterious thing holding him a shock. The thing cried out also and let go of him. Draco whirled around to see Crabbe and Goyle standing there, the former hunched over in pain, the latter laughing.

"You oafs," Draco muttered. "What was that for?"

"He was trying to scare you," Goyle said, recovering from his chortles enough to answer. "Boo. That's what you do on Halloween, yeah?"

Exasperated by the stupidity of his peers, Draco made no response; his mask, however, spurted out another stream of smoke from its nostrils, which caused Pansy, Goyle, and Crabbe to all break into laughter.

A/N: Reviews are love.