Draco Malfoy is eleven years old when he first catches sight of a blur of sunshine one bleak and blustery afternoon. It clouds the vision in his left eye, snatches his attention for more than fifteen seconds, forces him to whip his head - his entire body - around, all just to catch a glimpse, a teeny, minuscule glimpse, of a girl - the girl - bundled beneath the flash of vibrance.
And Draco, well, Draco has to remind himself just how putrid the color truly is. How revolting the House it belongs to is. How even more offensive the girl who resides in the House with the dreadful color is.
Because she is absolutely, positively, completely and down right, utterly horrible. A disgrace to her already disgraceful House. Â
And Draco has no desire to discredit his high and mighty family title for someone of such a lowly caste.
Draco Malfoy is twelve years old and believes himself even more superior in contrast to the population that makes up Hogwarts. Spitting the word âMudbloodâ like venom to its prey nearly every other day, lets it drip from his lips like a faulty faucet in the dead of winter.
And this - this bothers her, gets underneath the thin layer of her flesh, and gnaws away at her every last nerve, bores itself into the endless void of her brain, and pesters her and pounds its menacing name against the drums of her ears, sends her into a frenzied dance of furry in the middle of the night between the cotton quilts dressing her feather, soft mattress, and makes her clamp down on her rose dusted lips till they transfer to a gleaming crimson. Â
But she doesnât dare speak, doesnât dare say a single word, or crack a simple syllable.
And this - this bothers Draco, infuriates him to no end, seeps underneath the translucent skin of his peeked cheeks sending them into a flurry of untameable flames. Â Â
But he doesnât dare stop, doesnât dare let the chance of her speaking to him flutter away like the tattered leaf tumbling down, down, down to the ruby littered ground right before his very eyes in this very moment in time. Â
And it occurs to him, rather harshly, that the word itself doesnât taste half as well as heâd anticipated.
It isnât until Dracoâs third year he musters the courage to speak two words to her. Â Â Â
âWatch it!â he hisses.
And itâs the girlâs turn to whip her head - her entire body - around, all just to stare him down dead in the eye.
And, my God, if sheâs not completely and down right, utterly gorgeous in the bleeding sunlight.
But instead of spitting venom right back at him, she smiles. A graceful grin, a sneaky smirk, and the corridor shimmers and glimmers under her ethereal presence. Â
A remark suffused with snark is rolling around behind the walls of her loosely sealed lips, a playful glint igniting a spark in her eyes as she speaks.
âWhat makes you think Iâm the one who needs to watch it?â
Swiftly like the autumn wind scraping against the dust filled windowpanes, she twirls around and is on her way. Â
Draco Malfoy is fourteen years old and standing beneath the midnight stream of a crystallized chandelier watching ever so carefully, ever so cautiously as she glissades across the grandeur, ice floor, five fingers intertwined with those of a distinguishable boy with a diacritic scar and a detectable pair of spectacles.
And Draco, heâs seething, is hardly breathing, can hardly see clearly for the burning, gurgling concoction seeping up and up and up his esophagus.
Itâs not until later when his eyes catch on the billow of her dress, and the shimmer of her skin, and the catalytic twirling of the wind between her hair and -
She feels the weeping of the wound before he even pulls the trigger, hears the breeze beneath his feet as he glides across the snippy December air from behind the spot of where she stands.
âCareful,â she spirals around slowly, gown bound lowly to the tips of her toes. âStare any longer, and I might actually bleed out.â
âWouldnât want that.â
âRight. Iâd hate to be the one to dirty your pretty, shiny shoes.â
He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it once more, but reverts back to the resounding silence.
âThatâs not what I meant.â
âYou sure about that?â
Dracoâs never been sure about much of anything.
âIâve got a question for you, Malfoy, and I want the truth.â
Dracoâs only ever learned how to form petty lies around his pretty lips.
âWhy is it youâve never called me that.â
And he knows, oh, my God does Draco know.
âYouâre a remarkably good liar,â she whispers, and itâs only then and there, Draco takes note of just how close theyâve become in such a short span of time. âBut not that good.â
âYou just never heard me.â he retaliates coolly, and rather quickly.
Much too quickly, and not quite chilly enough.
Her face grows closer until itâs mere millimeters away from his unraveling lips. Their breaths are intertwining, and body heat is interweaving, and tightened chests are quickly rising and -
âI donât believe you.â
Dracoâs not so sure heâs ever felt so cold in all his life.
It isnât until fifth year Draco receives a shock most alarming.
It isnât until fifth year he receives a dose of fiery, cold water down the shirt on his back, feels it trickle down the iron wrought staircase of his spine and slither through the notches of his ribs, down to the very marrow of his very bones. Â
It isnât until his fifth year is nearing its end he receives a tangible whack across his face more abrupt and unexpected and unwelcome than Grangerâs back in third year.
It isnât until his fifth year he receives his first kiss.
And it goes a little something like this:
A girl - the girl - comes billowing down a torch-lit, midnight swept corridor with a laugh lodged in her throat and a flush tainted to her cheeks.
And he knows she cannot, should not be here, knows he should not be considering letting her be, remaining free, and he knows, oh, my God, does Draco know he should snatch her wrists and commit his sin by turning her in and gain himself a win, but he cannot, cannot, cannot bring his rigid form to break free from this rock hard mold, cannot, cannot, cannot bring himself to do the wrong thing because this is her, and as much as he really, truly, deeply detests her, it appears he cannot unveil the strength he needs to pull through with this daunting task.
But when she spies him spying her, she stops, stumbles, stutters, all wide eyes and saturated shadows melting down her waxy features.
Itâs a moment of silence - a moment of truth - as they stare the other down, waiting for a sign - a motion, a flash, a jolt - that they are, in fact, flesh and bones and not cold, hard stone.
âYou shouldnât be here.â is all he says - all he can think to say. Because every other possible letter and word and sentence is mortar on the roof of his mouth.
âYouâre going to turn me in, arenât you?â she quietly inquiries, though, itâs hardly an inquiry at all. Rather, itâs more of a confrontation, an invitation, a dare.
A sickly, sweet dare Draco swishes around his mouth, rolls across his tongue, spreads over his taste buds and shoves down his esophagus.
Itâs a dare - a dare so utterly sweet, so undeniably taunting - one Draco cannot seem to say âyesâ or ânoâ to.
A cheshire cat smile tickles her lips as her maddening stare bores bullets through his soul, his skull, his fucking sanity. Sheâs closing in and grinning big as she places one foot in front of the other until sheâs close, closer, closest, until he can no longer breath, no longer see the precise lines of her sloping nose and razor wire jawline.
And theyâre barely missing, skin almost, almost, almost kissing.
And itâs oh so tantalizing, oh so terrifying.
Their lips are brushing, heartbeats pulsing -
- And their lips are touching, pulse points rushing.
And this - this is new. Â
This is different. This is enthralling. This is enticing. This is petrifying, just as it is electrifying.
And his next movement comes uninitiated, unpredicted. For his fingers weave through the waves of her hair as he kisses, kisses, kisses her back so hard and so long that his lips swell and his tongue exudes a lurid, berry syrup. Â
Teeth clink and guards sink, and without a blink or a proper moment to think, heâs crashing into the cold, hard ground without anything or anyone to grasp on to.
Draco Malfoy is sixteen years old, and his life is spiraling out of control.
Because thereâs a mark, you see, all serrated and stark against shockingly white flesh. The ink rubs against his veins the wrong way.
His tears seep through the starch of his shirt and his blood flows through the crevices of the scabrous stones of the girlâs bathroom floor.
Heâs bleeding out, and thereâs nothing he can do to make it stop.
This is how she finds him - lying in a flood of horrors, the basin overflowing, blood drowning her toes and filling his lungs.
She canât quite bear the sight.
She runs to him, holds him tight, with all her might, without a fright and -
And she doesnât let go.
Draco really doesnât know how much longer he can keep on fighting.
He realizes heâs finally reached the end of the line.
Perhaps that was his destination this whole time.
âPlease, Professor, you have to help him,â she whispers, quiet desperation slipping from her tongue, and spilling from her eyes.
Draco canât help but wonder if this is what it feels like to die.
Because lying here it all seems much too crystal clear.
The end of the world is finally here, knocking on his door, his demise has arrived at long last.
Draco Malfoy is seventeen years old, and the time has come for him to go.
Because thereâs a war, you see, all blood and gore amidst a world torn in two.
Itâs cackling like a tortuous scorn inside the walls of his head, thrumming and humming within the flow of his bloodstream, screaming and crying and -
âI have to go.â he says, words reverberating through the ash-mottled air.Â
His name has been called, and itâs time for him to move on, to choose the side he was meant to all along.
He canât help but feel as if he were the one who had been wrong after all.
âYou donât have to,â she says, and oh, my God, Draco knows.
âOh, but I do, love.â
She shakes her head, digs her nails into the lapels of his jacket. Thereâs soot in her hair, and tears in her eyes, and blood on her lips. Draco can feel the final sigh of his once beating heart, the tumbling of the walls inside his chest.
He really did try his best.
Draco knows this is a final goodbye, and a screaming cry and a dire prayer to a God that Dracoâs unsure is even there and -
âI love you,â he says.
But only inside the back of his head.
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