He can see his mother now in his peripheral vision, her face lined with fear and horror and hands twisting together in front of her. But she does nothing; just stares at the floor several paces to the left of where Draco lies, tears standing unshed in her eyes. His back throbs with pain from the raw whip marks fresh across his skin – twenty deep stripes, flaying the flesh wide open. His knee is swollen to twice its proper size, and his mouth bloody from where someone struck him and his teeth sank through his tongue. Draco refuses to show his pain. He won't entertain them; he will not be the one to give the Dark Lord cause to giggle with glee in that awful high pitch of his, dear Aunt Bella grinning wickedly beside her master.