It only took four words for you to break my heart.
Those four, life changing words were spit in my face with such malice and hatred, it was impossible to hope you didn't mean them.
In all honesty, I've wanted to be you friend since first year. When you extended your childishly soft looking hand on the Hogwarts Express and spoke you first words to me, I could tell I would never meet anyone more interesting than you, Draco Malfoy. You offered me a friendship that I was too confused to accept.
You see, I was raised in captivity by the ones who were supposed to love me. I was kept in the dark and away from others my entire childhood and your proposal baffled me. Why would someone as lively and lifelike as you want to have anything to do with the Boy Who is Socially Crippled?
Ron Weasley's companionship was an easy thing to come by. Because he was the first person I met, I obviously clung to him like a life preserver in this strange and apparently magical world. Even though I didn't know what to say or do, having never had a real friend before, he didn't even seem to notice; he never had been very good at decoding emotions.
When I refused your hand, it was only because I was wary about someone who could say such mean things. I hadn't known the type of home you came from; judgmental and unforgiving. I couldn't see past the rude things that flowed over your lips and how they slapped my first, and best, friend in the face.
With that one act of denial towards you, your hatred for me was planted.
In our second year, I had to suppress the giddy joy that ran through me as Ron and I spoke to you in the Slytherin common room when we were under the effects of the Polyjuice Potion. The way you chose your words and changed your facial expressions was so captivating. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to talk to you as Harry rather than your henchman Goyle.
I watched your eyes when we questioned you about being the 'Slytherin heir' and saw your quickly hidden sadness at our distrust in you. It nearly broke my heart to see that someone could feel that terrible and then mask the emotion like nothing was ever said; it made me wonder if the real Malfoy was hidden beneath your egotistical and vain persona.
I was almost glad when the Polyjuice Potion started to wear off and my scar was slowly fading back to the surface of my forehead. There was obviously no choice left but for Ron and me to leave; therefore I couldn't let the comforting words that ran through my mind slip past my mouth and ruin my cover.
I still remember in third year, Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Lupin, when we each had to face the boggart in the wardrobe. I was standing near the back of the line when it was your turn to face the shape-shifter.
When you stepped forwards and Lavender Brown's dead-dog-turned-live-puppy quickly morphed into a tall man with silver blond hair, I only saw the disappointment in his face for a moment before you shouted "Riddikulus!" With that, your father transformed into one of the less attractive girls from the band Wyrd Sisters and hurried back to your friends.
Your father, Lucius Malfoy, was the one that taught you to fear persecution and rejection. He showed you to hate and be hated in return. His training combined with your immovable pride made it impossible for you to forgive my uncouth rejection on the train.
I know I should have given up on my ill-founded hope that we could be friends by our fourth year, when your very apparent dislike of me blossomed after I was chose as an extra competitor in the Triwizard Tournament. Though I overheard you snarling at Crabbe because he wrongly thought you "...cared about some stupid contest", I knew it hurt you that I, once again, was the center of attention.
I knew how hard you must have been taking it when that letter came during breakfast one morning; your face got even paler and you hurriedly tucked it away. Later, I heard a group of Hufflepuffs gossiping that the letter was one from your heavily upset mother.
Apparently, she was disillusioned that you would somehow trick the Goblet and bring eternal glory to the Malfoy name. She must have known this was an unreasonable request because of your age, but when a boy in your year was selected, it must have rubbed salt in her wound.
It wasn't until our fifth year in Hogwarts that your schoolboy rivalry grew into an actual hatred after you blamed me for sending your father to Azkaban. This was when your cruel jokes morphed into emotional and often physical abuse.
Why didn't your awful treatment of me deter my desire for your friendship? Why did your terrible and unjustified punishing turn my need for your companionship to a question of my own sexuality? I certainly couldn't find the way you growled at my friends or screamed hexes at me with such emotion attractive could I? Nor did I even notice the way you grew nearly half a head taller than me over the summer.
Sixth year was a terrible experience for me. I slowly became obsessive towards you and started to follow you around the castle almost subconsciously. Under the cover of my invisibility cloak, I would trail your lantern-illuminated shadow into the library's restricted section in the middle of the night. I often wondered what you were so eager to learn about but I could only catch a few glimpses without giving away my presence.
I would come into the girls' lavatory, sometimes, while I was still unaware of the cause of your stress, as you confessed your thoughs to Moaning Myrtle in a way that I could never imagine you doing. Never before had I seen you as the scared boy you actually were; only the child who wanted to impress.
The first time I saw you break down and bear all of your insecurities in the Prefects' lavatory, I couldn't control my hands as I dropped the cloak and walked over in hopes of comforting you. When I saw this human side to the devilishly perfect Draco, that was when I knew that my search for you acquaintance was actually a need for your love.
When I walked up behind you, a thousand scenarios played in my mind about what would happen, when I reached you. Would you scream and kill me? Or perhaps you would continue crying and kiss me.
I probably shouldn't have been as devastated as I honestly was when you decided to try the first option and cast the Cruciatus Curse at me when you saw my reflection in the mirror. I didn't mean to throw Sectumsempra at you; it was merely my first instinct. After I uttered the incantation, I couldn't believe what I had done. Certainly I couldn't have hurt such a wonderful and brilliant man. I convinced myself that it had all been a dream and that I had to leave.
I left you to bleed on the Lavatory floor because I refused to believe I could hurt someone I love so much.
When I rescued you from Crabbe's Fiendfyre attack in the Room of Requirement in seventh year, it gave me a glimmer of hope that your hatred for me might have evaporated after you father was no longer in Azkaban. The way you clung to my back as we flew to safety felt so electrifyingly right that there was no way that you could not feel the lightning that coursed through my body and into yours.
And that moment of hesitation I noticed when Voldemort called you over to the side of you fellow Death Eaters, that proved it. I was –and still am- undeniably in love with you.
I could sense that you didn't truly want to be on that monster's side of the war, despite you hatred of the dirtying of pure wizard blood. I knew that you only obeyed to please your parents, because they're the only family you have. You don't have anyone else who loves you; or so you think.
When we met again in our eighth year of school, you didn't glare at me, nor did you call me names; you stayed quiet and detached from everyone. I thought that maybe, just maybe, you had seen past our differences now that the war was over.
When we were paired as partners in Professor Gerikson's potions class, I was pleasantly surprised when we were actually able to talk like human beings instead of sworn enemies for once. I was ready to let that class go on forever. And it actually seemed to. We had the class together every other day and each time we would join at our assigned cauldron, we would speak a bit more than the previous day. About two months into the class is all the time it took to become at least friendly; we even greeted each other outside of class and in the hallways.
We would often make study dates in the library –when you called them 'dates', my heart stilled in my chest- during lunch hour and just talk the whole time. I relished the moments we would spend out by the lake just walking in each other's presence, not making a sound.
We weren't close enough to share secrets and gossip about who were the cutest boy and girl in our grade, but we had finally reached the friendship that I had yearned for, for seven years. Everything was perfect.
That all came to an abrupt halt when you reached for the Valerian Sprigs for our Sleeping Draught and our hands met, I knew that that insufferable wench, Pansy Parkinson, saw the raging blush creep up into my cheeks. She saw how dreamily I looked at his face for a few seconds afterwards. She knew everything.
I saw her talking to you after class inside the corridor and I tried to squelch my panic. Perhaps she was just talking about the lesson. Yes, that made more sense, since she still had her potions book open in her hand. I breathed out a heavy sigh of relief and walked towards you as she skipped off to the Slytherins' next class.
You must not have heard me calling your name, so I sped up and knocked you in the shoulder playfully. When you stiffened, you uttered the words that forever changed me.
"Don't touch me, faggot," you said quietly, but with enough malice and hate behind them to sound like a death threat.
And with those words, you destroyed a piece of me; you stormed off and never came back.
Authors Note: Hello there! So, this is my first story for Harry Potter so I'm sorry if they're OOC. Though, personally, I don't think Draco is (not tooting my own horn, I swear). Tell me if my attempt at angsty humor was a good one or not. And I'm sorry if the way I kept breaking up paragraphs was annoying, it's just my style of writing. Any feedback would be appreciated and thoroughly loved; pleasepleaseplease review :D
Oh, and add me on Pottermore if you want! My username is AshDawn76 and I'm in Gryffindor.