by prexus
Author`s note: inspired by Sandra Cisneros' "Eleven." I'm not really happy with this fic, but there's not much more I could do with it, really. Pity, actually. It was a good idea, I think.
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Jigsaw puzzles get harder and harder as the pieces get smaller and smaller, and harder to find.
You see, what they don't tell you is that, what you are now is everything from here to there, then to now. You're still the same person. When you're seventeen, you're also sixteen, and fifteen, all the way down to five, and one. You might have forgotten some things, but you're still that boy or girl that clung on to Mummy's skirt or cried at a scraped knee.
But what if, maybe, you never had Mummy's skirt to cling unto? What if, perhaps, there was no one to sing a lullaby to you as they fixed your broken knee? Are you still the same, still whole? Are you still as real, like the other kids your age?
Or maybe there's something missing. They say that the heart is like a jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces are found, year-by-year, as you grow.
Draco Malfoy, boy-who-has-everything, is missing a few years.
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He follows behind a group of 6th years, Slytherins, he notes. They sit. He continues walking to the other end of the table, where the 7th years sit.
Not just any old Slytherins, but the Slytherins. He approaches and they quiet, as if in ceremony. They wait until he sits down. Prestige.
He sits. The noise begins again. Breakfast, as usual.
Draco looks over at the table on the other side of the Great Hall. You know, the sunnier, more golden side. He sees them, as usual. He likes to pretend that he's better than them. But inside, he knows. Knowledge.
Sometimes he catches him self in the act of actually wanting to know what it's like to be them. Or maybe even, wanting to be them. Jealousy.
Owls swoop down. He waits for the package that's never there, the package of home-made goodies. He waits for the letter that he wants but never gets, the one with lovely loopy writing and words of love. Want.
A letter drops in his plate of toast. He knows what it says even before he opens it. Maybe he'll just toss it in the fire. But everyone's watching, so he opens it. He doesn't even read it but stares at the empty letters.
Mum says that for the winter holidays, she'll make me the grandest cake with all my favorite toppings. And Father says he's bringing home the latest broom for me. Of course he's lying. It really only inquires his grade, if he's still the top. Not even a Love, Mummy. Lack.
And they all think he's spoiled, when really, he doesn't have a thing to show.
Sometimes, he makes up parts of his childhood to make others jealous of the way his Mummy loved him.
The others go back to their own notes, letters, and boxes of love disguised in chocolates. He lets his face fall for a second. Disappointment. Well, he doesn't need it anyway. It's not like anyone else has something that he doesn't have. He lies to himself a lot.
And he realizes that he's still the same person. Nothings gone, nothing added.
It's actually really very logical, in a sense. The manufacturer must have left some of the puzzles pieces out.
You can't have something that was never there before. You can't expect to put something together, if a whole was given first.
You see, it's rather hard, to find a fictional piece of your life.
FiN.