─── STARING AT THE CHARRED CIRCLE where his face had once been, Saros swallowed as his father and brother scrambled for words. With his back turned, he missed the looks exchanged between Lucius and Draco as Lucius silently noted that Draco allow him to lead the conversation. With his eyes scanning over the other faces of the tapestry, he noticed that there were a few other faces that appeared burnt off as well. Names like Eduardus Black, Cedrella Black, Marius Black, and Iola Black decorated the top with black ornaments and near the bottom close to his name were names of Andromeda Black and Sirius Black III.

There seemed to be plenty of names, but no indicator as to why their faces had been burnt, however, Saros was intelligent enough to come to the conclusion that it wasn't for a good reason. Finally, he turned to Lucius, waiting for the explanation, only to feel a sense of coldness watch over him as he faced his father.

"Why was my face burnt off?" he asked again. " Why are the other faces burnt off as well? Who are those people?"

He pointed to each spot, feeling an overwhelming sense of becoming upset as his eyes burned with tears. He had yet to even hear the reason behind it, but he felt like he wasn't going to like what he was going to be told. With his vision becoming blurry, Saros swiped his sleeve over his eyes and looked up at his father once more.

Lucius' hand reached out once more and rested on his shoulder, gripping Saros' shoulder tightly. "Son, listen to me closely," Lucius said, " the tapestry can always be repaired. Nothing on here remains permanent if those that are on here are willing to admit their wrong. However, the decisions you made before your accident, they are not ones supported by this family. They were dangerous thoughts, ones that could have gotten you killed."

"So you burnt me off the family tree, is that it!? You just burnt me out of the family?"

"You were a danger, you wouldn't listen," Lucius attempted to remain as much as possible. " We really believed that we lost you."

Thinking back to what he and Draco had briefly discussed outside, Saros was coming to the conclusion that whatever he had done had really painted him as a bad person to his family. However, there was a stinging pain in the back of his head that told him not to listen to what he was being told. He thought back to when he was found in London, by Angelina and her friends, how relieved they seemed to be to find him. And when he didn't seem to recognise them, they seemed devastated, especially Angelina.

But his family, they all seemed too relieved, even though he didn't remember them. They were just happy to have him home but they were giving him no insight into his past. He understood what the Healers had said about keeping information limited due to the fact that they didn't want his memory manipulated, but at the same time, they weren't giving him anything. His mother seemed set on keeping him in the manor even with school starting just around the corner.

His parents wouldn't tell him what he had done "wrong" and it seemed everyone, including Draco, were just tiptoeing around him. Even if they were relieved that he was alive and well, wouldn't they still be bothered by the fact that he had done something so crucially wrong that had nearly cost him his life and cost him his face being burnt off the tapestry? Something wasn't adding up, something felt incredibly wrong.

He remembered his room and how there had been nothing in it when he came in, Draco claimed it had all been stuffed in his trunk, but why would he take that all with him? Why would he take childhood drawings with him to school, especially if he had been pulling away from his family, enough that they thought he had lost him? Shaking his head, Saros met his father's gaze with no plans of looking away until he got the answer he was waiting for.

"I want to know what happened, I don't care what the Healers said," he said in a harsh tone, " I want to know the truth. What did I do that made me the danger?"

"Saros-"

"WHY DID YOU BURN MY FACE OFF THE FAMILY TREE?!"

Draco visibly jumped at his brother's sudden burst of anger and looked to his father to fix everything. However, it seemed with every passing second that things were only escalating and getting worse. And Saros, even though he was demanding answers, wasn't giving Lucius any time to speak as he seemed to further lose his temper.

"Why were all my belongings with me in school? If I had decided to distance myself from all of you, why would I think to take all of those things with me? Childhood drawings, cards I made for all of you, why would I have them with me? It doesn't sound like you were concerned about anything that could get me killed...it sounds like you...you disowned me. That's what all of this is, isn't it? All of these people, they've been disowned? What did they do? What did Andromeda or Sirius do? What about Cedrella? Did they all do the same thing that I did?"

He felt his heart practically about to beat out of his chest as he continued to get more and more worked up and the fact that Draco wouldn't look at him the entire time he had been questioning things made Saros believe that he wasn't far off with his thoughts. Lucius still hadn't answered, but he no longer looked as calm as he had initially been. Instead, he appeared annoyed or rather angry with Saros? But what was he to be angry about, that Saros was discovering the truth?

Suddenly, they were joined by Narcissa, who had heard the commotion from the other side of the manor. Her face revealed the nerves that everyone outside of Saros was feeling as he was coming closer and closer to revealing the truth even though he didn't have his memory back.

Saros turned his eyes on his mother. "That's why you don't want me to return to school," he said to her, " because there is more to this story, isn't there? You all know something and I'm not supposed to know it. Why? All the blame seems to keep falling on me, but you won't tell me what? So what did you all do? I don't think it was all on me. I met people that were relieved to see me until they saw that I didn't have my memory, what did they know? I want to talk to them! Where's Angie? I want to talk to Angie!"

At the mention of her name being cast in their household, the Malfoy family visibly stiffened. Saros didn't notice but he didn't care either, he didn't care what anyone in the manor had to say at the moment as he wanted to speak to someone outside of the family. He felt like there was so much going on and it wasn't being revealed to him for other reasons that were outside of his "health."

"Saros," Narcissa whispered to him, "please, you need to relax. You're getting worked up and you don't understand everything that happened-"

"Because you won't tell me!" he snapped back at her. "You're all keeping things from me. You're all lying to me about things. I won't believe you until I talk to someone else."

"We haven't lied, Saros-"

Before Narcissa could try and calm him down, Saros brushed passed her to make his way out of the room, shaking his head at her words. Lucius and Narcissa hurried after him while Draco stood in the tapestry room unsure of what to do in the situation. He didn't like to see his family fight, he thought everything was going to be alright once Saros came home, but it seemed he was wrong. Things were taking a dark turn and they were turning dark fast.

"Saros-"

Spinning around, Saros had one last question to throw back at his parents before he decided what he was going to do. "Answer me this question then," he said as he faced both of them bringing them to a halt, " it's been something on my mind since I've been home, but I decided not to question it because I thought I could trust all of you. But if this is my prosthetic, you said it was mine before I went missing, why did you have it? Why did I wake up outside of some old man's house without it?"

Lucius' eyes widened slightly as he realised that Saros had remembered every word given to him when they were in St Mungo's before coming home.

"You did something to me, didn't you?" Saros whispered back to them, his voice cracking near the end. "Why else would I wake up and have no memory? Why would you have my leg before I went missing and I wake up in a field without it? Then all of my belongings packed away in my trunk, and my face burnt off the tapestry...it all makes sense. I don't have my memory and you don't want me to have it back, do you?"

As much as he wanted to hear an answer from them, Saros had a feeling that they were just going to feed him lies. Whatever he had been told since he was found, he couldn't bring himself to believe it. Things just weren't adding up and he needed to get out of the manor and find someone that was going to give him the truth. He thought about finding his way back to St Mungo's, however, he was going to do that and ask Arnold if he knew anything.

He didn't care about his mental health anymore, he cared about knowing the truth because whatever he was being fed was causing him even more harm. Turning away from his parents, he made his way to the front of the manor, shaking his head.

"Saros? Saros, where are you going?" Narcissa called after him. "Where are you going?!"

"I'm leaving!" Saros called back to them. "I'm going somewhere where people are going to tell me the truth and not hide things from me! There are too many secrets in this manor, I can't trust any of you to tell me what I need to know."

Narcissa gripped Lucius' arm, watching as her eldest son walked away from them. The fear on her face revealed that she was afraid of losing her son. She didn't want him to leave because if Saros walked out of that door, she was going to lose him forever.

"Lucius, do something please! Talk to him, do something!" she pleaded with him. "He can't leave, don't let him leave!"

Draco walked out of the tapestry room, only to see his own father raise his wand and point it at Saros' back as his brother walked away. He couldn't help but yelp out his brother's name in fear even though he didn't know what Lucius was about to do. At the sound of his name, Saros looked over his shoulder, only with enough time to see the light of the spell before it struck him in the chest.

Almost instantly, Saros collapsed to the manor floor, causing Narcissa and Draco to cry out as it was the last thing they had expected. But Lucius moved forward, collecting Saros from the floor into his arms.

"What did you do?! What did you do?!" Narcissa ran over as well but her fists pounded on Lucius' back in terror and anger. "Did you-"

"I'm saving him!" Lucius yelled back at her. "I'm saving him! That's what you want, isn't it?! That's what we all want, right? We want him to be safe? Well, this is the only thing we can do now or we're going to lose him!"

Draco could see the sweat pouring down his father's face, he could see the wiry look in his eyes, and hear the sound of the laboured breath as he carried Saros in his arms and walked away from him and Narcissa. Lucius disappeared into a room and the door was closed over, leaving the hall in silence as Draco stood next to his mother, who immediately began to cry. With it just being the two of them, Draco placed his hand on his mother's shoulder until she reached up and grabbed it.

As she peered up at him, it seemed she held the same question that Draco had been asking all long before Saros had disappeared.

Were they doing the right thing?

Narcissa and Draco had wandered to the sitting room after he had helped his mother up off the floor and they seemed to be waiting for Lucius to return to the room. It felt as though hours were passing, even though it probably had only been twenty minutes. They didn't speak to one another and the only thing that seemed to be playing over and over in their minds was Saros' words. Draco had heard just how angry his brother had been, but it wasn't just anger, it sounded like disappointment. It didn't seem to be so much about the fact that he had been disowned, but more of the idea that they had lied to him about it.

They had made it sound like everything was fine and Draco had fooled himself into believing that if he went along with everything that it would be okay. But it seemed even without his memory intact that Saros was just not destined to conform with the Malfoy beliefs anymore. It was like they had been too late to save him.

Glancing across the way, Narcissa's face had become emotionless as she seemed to regret every single action she had taken since Saros had been found. Not only had the plan been to lie to her son, but they hadn't even followed through enough to make things right.

Instead, it made matters worse.

Suddenly, the door opened and Lucius reappeared causing the other two to sit up in their chairs. He said nothing right away as he moved to the side and they all witnessed as Saros walked in. The silence was thick enough to choke on it and Draco found himself unable to breathe. He had a feeling that Saros was about to tell all of them to go to hell and that he was leaving. The stressful look on Lucius' face made it appear as though he had tried to reason with Saros in private but it hadn't worked.

However, it was a completely different story when he opened his mouth. "Father said there was food ready," he began, " are we going to all eat or did I miss out?"

"Draco, you and Saros head to the dining room," Lucius suggested, although it sounded more like an order more than anything. "Your mother and I will be there shortly."

Draco was hesitant about standing up, feeling uncomfortable as Saros smiled in his direction as if nothing happened just twenty minutes before. But with his father still giving him a look, he pushed himself up and made his way over to where Saros was standing, leading him out of the area. Once the Sitting Room was left to the adults, Narcissa stood up and walked over to her husband.

"You didn't, Lucius," she said to him under her breath, " please, tell me you didn't do what I think you did."

Lucius didn't answer, but his silence was enough and within seconds, he was left with a sharp sting to the side of his face as Narcissa had taken to slapping him across the face. Instantly, tears streamed down her face and she couldn't even look at him any longer as she stared down at the floor.

"I did what I had to do to protect him," Lucius responded quietly, not bothering to touch the side of his face, " you told me to stop him, this was the only way. He wasn't going to stay otherwise, you heard him."

"This is all your fault!" she hissed. "You are the one who turned him against us. He was fine with us before the Quidditch World Cup! You're the one who pushed him away and you're the one who pushed him to leave us! The Dark Lord wants him dead because of you! And if he doesn't want him dead, he wants him to join and I can't have...I don't want that-"

She stopped as soon as she heard her husband sobbed and as she peered up, she could see that Lucius had covered his face with his hand to hide the fact that he was crying. He knew it was his fault, he had accepted responsibility for his actions, but he didn't know what to do to fix it. His wife would tell him to do one thing but then she would grow angry with him when he tried to do something. He felt like his hands were tied, he was being pulled into different directions, trying to keep his son safe from the Dark Lord.

Saros' actions were going to get him killed.

"I don't know what to do anymore," Lucius admitted, " I could apologise a thousand times but it will never be enough. Tell me what to do, Narcissa, because I am lost with what to do at this point, but I want the same thing as you. I want our sons to be safe, but we are in a situation where none of us is safe."

"Are you alright, Draco? You're awfully quiet."

Peering up, Draco hadn't touched a bit of food on his plate to see Saros looking at him with concern written all over his face. It was too weird for Draco at the moment, considering everything had shifted so quickly. Saros had no recollection of being upset with the family, instead, he was carrying on as if everything was perfectly fine. It was terrifying for Draco to think of what Lucius had done to Saros in order to get to be so compliant.

"Yeah, I'm just tired," he answered quickly not wanting to think about it anymore. "Are you...are you feeling alright?"

A grin appeared on Saros' face as he nodded his head. "I feel great!"

A/N: A special thank you to demonlust for the beautiful new cover and you guys have been so patient, are you all ready for Saros to return to Hogwarts?