Glutton For Misery

I wish he would yell at me. It seems to be a crazy wish, but maybe I am crazy, who knows. What I do know is that if I'm not crazy now, I will be soon. Pushed into insanity by my father.

I have always had this wish. That Father would yell, or hit me, or do anything to show me that what I do matters to him in some way or another. But he doesn't. He just watches me. Emotionless.

When I was younger he did the same. He would stand there as I apologized over and over for accidentally smashing mother's priceless vase. I would cry, desperate for a reaction, but he would just coldly say that it's time I started acting like a Malfoy. Whatever that means.

What I did matted to Mother though. She had yelled and then made me clean up the shards of the vase. It was proof that at least one person in this miserable world loved me, but I needed more. I needed a father's love.

Everything I've done I've done because of him. To either to make him proud of me, or to piss him off in another desperate attempt to get him to react. Every effort I've made has failed.

That's why I'm the way I am. I taunt and occasionally fight the people I dislike, which is mainly everyone, because I know that it's better then doing nothing. Others don't see it that way.

I stand here in front of my father today, waiting for a reaction. Surely throwing away all me freedom and pledging my allegiance to someone who would no sooner look at me then kill me would get something out of him.

No. I was wrong: it doesn't. Even thought it is the last thing I want to do, and am only doing it for him, he acts no differently to when I smashed the vase.

He tells me that it's time I started acting like a Malfoy.

I want to choke him, maybe that would shake his composure. I don't. Instead I take a deep breath and squash the urge to throw something at him. I nod, knowing my words wouldn't be listened too. I turn, leaving his study.

I will be given another assignment from the Dark Lord. Another test. This time, I hope I don't fail. This time I hope that I can do it right and for once my father will tell me that I did a good job, and that I'm finally acting like Malfoy.

Soon I will be like him, but in a strange way its what I want the most, and least at the same time. I'd felt brief stab of happiness when I learnt that he'd broken out of Azkaban. In a twisted sense it was almost a second chance for me.

I had hoped that Azkaban had made him insane. It would have been so much easier for me to accomplish what I had been trying to do since I was seven if he wasn't sane anymore.

He hadn't changed.

Giving up. That would be the ideal way to get out of this. I can't do it though. Malfoys don't give up, they keep fighting. In my large, cold room I sit on my bed, and look at the floor. It's not worth it, and I know it's not, but I keep trying.

I know now that I'm not crazy. I'm just a glutton for misery.