"Send a heartbeat to
The void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass
For now we stand alone
The world is lost and blown
And we are flesh and blood disintegrate
With no more to hate"

--"The Beginning is the End is the Beginning" by The Smashing Pumpkins

Master of a Nothing Place

by The Conqueror Worm

The gray waves crash against the boat with violence. A boat—how muggle. But I suppose they do not want an easy escape. That is the point of having Azkaban in the middle of nowhere. I long to not be here—to be home and clean. To be a proud Pureblood once again. Instead, I am going to prison. So much for the Dark Lord's promises of Pureblood superiority.

I know for a fact that one of my jailors is a muggleborn. How demeaning. I suppose they really have won our world. I don't expect him or anyone to understand the circumstances that brought me to this moment. They cannot.

My mother died during my birth. Perhaps, to her, I would have been precious—a burst of light in the darkness of her husband's home. But it was not to be. She died, and my father remained to raise me. He was a harsh man, and I was his perpetual disappointment. He beat the ideals of Pureblood society into me, and still, I had no worth to him.

I went through school miserably enough. Oh, yes, my alleged peers worshipped me above all others. I was the pride of the Slytherin house and its fading glory. But if you are the only one at the top, you have no true friends. Believe me, I acted the part well. I became a prefect and later, headboy. Chastely, I dated the beauties of Pureblood society, and I preached the uncleanliness that Hogwarts had become. But it was an echo of my father's words, and I despised the foulness of them in my mouth.

The Dark Lord was no stranger in family's home. My father had attended school with him at some point, and they would often get together to discuss the failings of modern society. I grew to fear that man, but my father grew to value him and his ideas higher than his son's life. I was one of the first Death Eaters of my generation. I blamed my father.

After school, after I was marked, after I had killed, I married. The elder Black sisters had been promised to older English families, but Narcissa Black had been promised to my family soon after her birth. We had spent our school years avoiding each other, as if that would somehow save us from our engagement. When I finally met her—truly met her as a person, and not a passing glance across the common room—I could tell she was the type of person who would come to both love me and hate me with every last piece of her. I felt nothing but pity for her.

My father had raised me to be cold and distant, and I proved to be a poor husband. I was awkward with emotions. I truly longed to be alone, yet I was lonely in that large house, far away from where even her eyes could seek me. I fell in love with her through the rare moments we passed each other in the hall. It hurt so much to look at her. It was like we were not even married—I felt as if I longed for a woman I could never know or have.

When she was at last to bear me a son, I was afraid she would die as my mother had. I did not know what I should do with a child. Would I become like my father? Would my son follow in my flawed, uncertain footsteps as I had in my father's?

But Narcissa lived, as did the child. When his gray eyes met mine, I finally understood what children are meant to be to their parents—what my father had never understood. Children are the best parts of us—the final culmination of everything we are and have hoped to be. I named him after the constellation, Draco, as he would be the first real light of the Malfoy estate. Home.

Narcissa and Draco taught me what a family is supposed to be. I learned to be a husband and a father, and when the Dark Lord fell and my name was cleared, I had never known such true and pure happiness. Love is what unconditional freedom must taste like.

Then, the Dark Lord returned. I again donned the chains of servitude. I again only knew the tastes of death and fear. How I longed to run, but the chains would only hold me back. How shamed my name became, and my wife and son lost all faith in me. Nothing has ever been so worthless as the Dark Mark, and yet, I followed. Blind and terrified, I followed every order. I fulfilled every command. I neglected my home and family in favor of destroying others'. The regret—the sorrow—is overwhelming.

This sea is made of tears. I can taste the salt as water sprays across my face. How long did others weep for forgiveness, suffer for repentance? How long must I? There are no words in this apology. There are no tears left to cry. The loss of something that is precious and unique—a family, warmth, love—is more terrible than the longing for freedom. This blood soaked into my skin, the blood in my son's veins—are they that different? What were we fighting to preserve? A world of death and destruction, fear and ignorance, loss and pain? I hate myself and the monster I've become—the monsters I have followed, weak and blind, for years. There are no more footsteps left to walk in here. I am lost and alone.

And that is why I am writing you this—here, on a half-sunken boat leading me to my death—and that is why I will soon beg the muggleborn—yes, beg on my hands and knees to one I once looked down upon—to deliver this letter to you. It is so you will know that there is no dignity at the end of this path. No superiority or praise or devotion. There is no love. There is only despair and death, loneliness and darkness. There is no warmth within that darkness.

Follow your own path. Make your own footprints. Mine are too uneven and faded for you to follow in anymore. Remember that love is more important than pride and that freedom is more important than power. That a woman's touch is worth more than her name. That blood is blood is blood—and I have never, despite all the people I have killed, seen a difference between ours and theirs. That tears of joy are so much better than silent suffering. Remember these things, but never learn their value through error. I wish you only happiness, no matter how you pursue it.

Father