A/N: Short piece in Draco's POV about beauty. Yeah, my baby's fucked up.

Disclaimer: Don't own anything.

WARNINGS: Bad language, child abuse, beauty and other nasties.

Beauty Isn't Forever

Beauty is one of the main virtues of the Malfoy family.

Pale skin, narrow hips, slender forms, light blonde hair, grey eyes, thin wrists, small feet, soft skin.

We are all beautiful.

Me, my father, my mother . . . well, she used to be. Used to be before she couldn't handle the stress of being beautiful and perfect all the fucking time.

One time in forth year Potter said that my mother looked like she had shit under her nose – I will never forget that. Who the fuck was he to insult my mother? She had been through more than he could have ever hoped to imagine, the little prick.

That was what I thought in forth year, anyway.

I mean, I know my mother isn't all that pretty now. She could be, if only she didn't have, to quote Potter, 'dung under her nose'.

Anyway, she used to be beautiful, until she decided 'Fuck this, I want out' and tried to walk out of the house with me when I was four years old, but no, nononono, Lucius wouldn't let her, nonono, no, he grabbed her, and he slammed her face against the wall, and he fucking broke her nose, and he threatened to kill her if she ever tried to leave with or without me again.

So, after that, she constantly walked around with that expression on her face because of her broken nose.

Thanks, Father. Thanks for that. You stopped Mother from being beautiful. How kind of you.

He used to make me walk outside in winter without a coat or jumper on, would you believe. He'd make me stand outside in the snow, when it was fucking minus twelve degrees outside for an hour, while he sat inside his warm little study and made plans on how to bring Voldemort back to life or whatever the hell he did.

That's why I'm so pale.

I was never that pale when I was a kid, but apparently, 'you aren't beautiful enough to be a Malfoy, boy', so Dad made me go outside for an hour every day in winter. Even at Christmas.

At Christmas, where families were at home with their kids, eating and talking and laughing and opening presents and not saying 'Please let me in, Daddy, I'll be a good boy, I promise, please let me in, please' outside when it's snowing and the snow covers all the trees and the ground and the house and everything and then fainting at the doorstep and then being told 'You showed weakness, Draco, you get no presents this year, go to your room' and being all cold and alone at Christmas, hahaha, at Christmas, all alone at Christmas, isn't that funny?

He is quite a fucked up man. Where do you think I get it? And he blamed me when I got pneumonia once when I was eleven. Excuse me, but who made me stand outside in the cold for an hour every day? It certainly wasn't Mother.

You know who I think is beautiful? Blaise Zabini. That's who I think is beautiful.

He is the exact opposite of me; he wears his dark hair long, while I wear my fair blonde hair short. He lets it down around his shoulders, I gel mine back. His dark, dark eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles widely. My cold grey eyes remain impassive and I never smile. He is tall, where I am small. He has muscle, and I am just skin and bone. He looks good naked, and I don't.

Yeah, I fucked him once last year. He was beautiful. And I like beautiful things.

Not as much as Daddy, though, Daddy's obsessed with beauty, he married Mummy 'cos she was beautiful, he makes me wear a make-up because it makes me beautiful, he spent so much money on our Manor to make it beautiful, he makes me stand outside when it's coldcoldcoldsocold because it makes me beautiful . . .

But he slipped, once, I think. He started worshipping the Dark Lord, who is far from beautiful.

Anyway, some could say my father is beautiful.

A strong, regal face, pale skin, a slightly pointed chin, fair blonde hair gelled back, broad shoulders, cold grey eyes, a tall, slender figure.

But yesterday, yesterday my father came out of his study, his face paler than usual, his eyes wide and mouth slightly open in shock.

His long blonde hair was knotted, and some bits of it were shorter than others (they looked like they had been cut by a blind barber); his usually regal nose looked like it had been bashed with a Quidditch bat, broken on the pitch in the middle of a game; he had wrinkles under his eyes, on his forehead, everywhere . . .

And his eyes . . . oh, his eyes.

They bleeding, yesyesyes, bleeding, yes, he was bleeding from the eyes, bleeding like he had made me bleed a few days ago, whips and chains and 'now you're beautiful, Draco' looking at my torso littered with blood and scars and cuts and bruises, and yes, his eyes were bleeding, and I think there was a bit of his eye missing, and yesyesyesyes he had finally got what was coming to him . . .

I looked at Mother, who was smirking slightly. Her nails were slightly stained with a red colour which I could tell wasn't nail polish, and she was holding a wrench in her left hand, which hung by her side.

Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.

I smirked slightly back at her, then turned around to look at my father, who was on his knees on the floor, looking horrified.

"Draco . . . son . . . please, help me . . ." he said, blindly grabbing onto the hems of my robes.

"I'm sorry Father, I cannot do that."

I took pleasure in the shocked look on his face.

"Why?" he asked, his voice raspy.

"Because you're not beautiful." I said.

An hour later, he had stopped moving and hitting and kicking and smacking and beating and talking and shouting and yelling and screaming and breathing. He was lying on the floor with blood still leaking out of his eyes, and into a pool of dark red blood around him.

I expect that he thought I'd run to his dead body and cradle his non-moving head in my arms and cry tears for him, cry and whisper 'I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm sorry' and cry because he can't hit me around anymore, cry because now I've got no one to make me stand outside in the cold any longer, cry because I've got no one who can push me to exhaustion and faint in public, cry because he can't intimidate me bully me torture me anymore.

But, you know what, you know what, I guess he didn't expect me to think 'hahahaha Dad, hahaha fuck you fuck you, you twisted fuck, fuck you'.

And do you know why?

Because he wasn't beautiful anymore.

I smiled at Mother, and she smiled back, and for one moment, she was beautiful again.

The End.