A/N: Hello! This is only my third posted one-shot so yeah...let's be kind. :) And the title comes from a Muse song off of their Showbiz album. The initial inspiration was from that song, but it kind of evolved and I ended up deleting a lot and rewriting it. Oh well...the title stays. Read, review, enjoy, etc etc!
Hate This and I'll Love You
When Nott had asked him, one night in the common room, if he feared the Dark Lord, he had said the first thing to come to his mind.
"Yes."
And that answer had been fairly accurate, then. The unease he felt when he allowed his mind to drift had inflated into something chronic and debilitating; a swollen, untreated parasite. The impending outbreak of war took up increasing amounts of his day, and his classmates spoke in hushed voices as if the first battle could break out at any second, perhaps in the middle of Charms, and it grated him and felt like cloth unraveling in his hands.
Nott's question had not been terribly surprising. He had always been more emotive, less guarded than the others. Draco had never thought to correct this mistake, a potentially fatal one, because it separated Nott, made him weak, and removed the focus from Draco. Nott had many reasons to fear, but perhaps the greatest one was his lack of control over his thoughts, his reactions.
Draco supposed he would be sad when the Dark Lord killed him.
Most students Draco knew had received post from their parents, and it was disgusting that no one spoke of it when everyone understood, and it all seemed like a bad attempt at mystery. Zabini's owl had ominously tapped the window one evening while most of the Slytherins had been studying, and he swiftly grabbed the letter and scanned the cream envelope, the corners of his mouth curling into a tight smile. Then he stood, throwing several people meaningful glances, and strode upstairs to the dormitory, leaving a thick silence in his wake.
When the Daily Prophet began printing a casualty counter in the right-hand margin of the front page, Draco stiffened. When he saw it change from 4,652 to 4,653 before his eyes, he ran to the nearest washroom to throw up, and berated himself afterwards.
"Potter."
Draco watched as Potter's back tensed and how he stopped in the middle of the corridor in a way that was both revoltingly melodramatic and strangely wounding. He wondered why it hurt, now, to see how loathed he was, when it had always provided him with comfort.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" Potter asked, the conventional malice lacing the words, and yet Potter looked weary, forlorn. Most of all, he looked tired. Like he had urgent matters to attend to, and had no time for these childish exchanges. Draco hated that.
"I need a moment of your time."
Draco had never drawn up plans for this conversation in his mind as he did for all other potential dialogue with Potter, because he never thought it would happen this way. He had never thought that events would play out quite like…this. It felt foreign and wrong to talk without scorn, to say these things without spite, and it was unnerving and probably the hardest thing he had ever had to do.
And Potter was skeptical, of course, and looked ready to run, and Draco thought that even an oblivious halfwit like Potter could sense the unfamiliar ground they were treading upon. But then he put on a ridiculously bold face and tried to stand up straighter, and Draco wanted to laugh at him but he was too anxious to do much of anything.
"Okay," Potter said.
And Draco told him everything--or, at least, what was necessary—and Potter listened. Relief washed over him, not regret, and Draco still thinks that he will never understand why.
"I love him, you know," Weasley said. Draco shifted on the couch, then closed his eyes.
"Of course you do."
Weasley sighed then, a familiar sound to Draco's ears, and it had used to annoy him with its ludicrous sense of world-weariness and implication of hardship, but now it felt like just a sigh, and Draco opened his eyes again. Weasley was staring out at the world beyond the window of Grimmauld Place, and for a moment Draco wished that those outside would notice them, would acknowledge that all of this meant something, and he thought that maybe Weasley wished it also.
Draco sighed.
"I love him, too."
Draco thought that he had never loved his parents, because he could never love anyone who paid him so much attention. The thought that perhaps they had never loved him didn't make him as sad as he thought it would, and it was the first jolt of surprise he'd felt in a long time.
He had spent so much of his life emulating his father, whose gaze held nothing but calculation and frosty reserve, and certainly not the stuff of love. Draco wondered when exactly his own face began emulating that, and if a stranger had ever thought, there goes Lucius Malfoy's son, without even knowing him.
Draco also wondered if that expression had dissipated immediately following that talk with Potter, or if it was slowly dying away, or if it would be with him forever. He sincerely wished it wouldn't with a vehemence that took him aback, and thought that he had always wanted to be a Malfoy, but had never really wanted to be Lucius Malfoy's son.
Draco admired his mother for her beauty and her shrewdness, and her keen ability to use both qualities to her advantage. But to him she was always out of reach, the same way a celebrity is, and the connection between them had only been partially forged. He wanted her approval, mostly because she doled it out so sparingly, but getting it is never the same as wanting it. It didn't take long for Draco to stop wanting it, because it wasn't worth it, and she had never really been much for child-rearing, anyway.
It had been the worst decision of his life. He never loved his family, but he thought that in his decision, he had turned down fate, rejected the life that was meant to be his, and now he didn't even know himself. And he knew, somewhere in his mind, that he would always pay for it.
But in the end, he stood with Potter, because he was sick of the fear, because his mother hadn't cared about him, and because he would never be able to make his father proud.
So he killed him instead.
In seconds, it's over.
Blaise is dead, and Padma Patil is dead, and Charlie Weasley is dead. Draco's father is dead, too.
And the Dark Lord is dead, but Potter isn't, and Draco can't quite comprehend why he feels tears stinging his eyes, but they feel like absolution. They feel good.
He falls to the ground, trembling as sobs rack his body, and he finally feels like he's done wrestling with indecision and guilt, because it's over at last, and his father is dead and he doesn't know where his mother is, but he doesn't care because his father is dead.
And then warm hands touch his back lightly, consolingly, and he doesn't need to know who they belong to because he just knows anyway, even though these hands have never touched him quite like this before.
"Potter." It comes out a bit like a squeak, and Draco almost laughs at how he can rebuke himself, even now.
Potter crouches down, hand on Draco's shoulder, and says, "It'll be okay. I know you…didn't mean to kill him."
And then Draco does laugh. And he sees the puzzled look on Potter's face, and laughs some more, because it's all so ridiculous.
"Potter, you great pillock–"
But then he remembers the hands on his back, and thinks that maybe it can wait for another time.