Through and Through.
I leaned heavily against the pristine surface, fingers gripping the slick porcelain surface so hard that my knuckles were turning white. The bronzed ornamental mirror over top of the sink reflected something that I barely recognise anymore.
In the past forty eight hours I seem to have learned a lot, staring at my own ghastly reflection. I can still hear my mother's grateful sobbing echoing through my head, a head of that famous rich Malfoy hair. Hair that is usually so slick that some would contest it unnatural. Today it is a mess, it sticks out at odd angles now, kind of like Potter's does.
"Yeah, I bet Potters laughing now," I mutter darkly at my reflection, voice a hoarse ghost of darkness that I don't recognise as a shaking pale hand rises to swipe at the unrecognisable mess of blond.
Grey eyes seem distant and bloodshot from lack of sleep, hollowed by dark smudges of bruised purple. The person before me resembles nothing that a Malfoy should be, those eyes are distorted with despair and anger, those lips that tremble against any willpower belong to no Malfoy that I have met.
Imagining Potter and his friends amusement, no, not amusement. There would be no amusement today or tomorrow or the day after that. Not for them. There would be something else in their eyes next time we met, condemnation? Revelation? No, it would be that whisper that echoes through eyes and soul and every other fiber of their body that tells them that they were right.They were always right.
I was a Malfoy through and through.
It resurfaces. The dull heaviness that threatens to drag my stomach to the floor and down, down into the levels of the Hell that awaits my soul. Strange that. I haven't eaten since we arrived in the night, stowed away like the world's dirty little secrets. The scum of the world trudged in to finery and splendor on the heels of a careless shoe.
I had failed, Snape had not.
He carried his victory in silence, a silence that I knew would not last.
Did Mother know that his victory would not buy me salvation? I hadn't asked her, finding no time between her desperate sobs of gratitude to the man who had taken from the world a soul that I hadn't been able to face.
The Dark Lord would know, it had been my task to carry, my cross to bear. I had buckled, I had failed.
So that leaves me, for the second day since the true leader of the Wizarding world was murdered, awaiting the final snap from the suspended jaws of Fate. Awaiting the last disgrace to the family name, my name, standing, talking to myself in the bloody mirror.
Raising a hand to attempt to brush my hair off of my face I find myself stopping.
This face of mine did not matter, my name would not matter to the world when I was found without a mark upon me, cold and sightless.
I draw my hand away from my face resolutely, the face in the mirror that of a child. That face was frightened, lonely and desperate, none of which are traits that a Malfoy should possess. I can feel my shoulders shaking as anger boils deep in my blood.
Was this really the path that my life had lead me upon? Am I to be another casualty of a meaningless war, a blind-sighted fool who followed the ambitions of his fore-Father's for fear of what could have been.
He did this to me, my proper and prejudiced Father. A man whose breeding and wit spoke of scholarly lore and the whims of the world. A man whose charm had entranced his son from the moment he had opened his perfect Malfoy grey eyes and stared in wonder at the blur of colour and sound that awaited him. A man who assured his son that he was better than the others, that the blood that ran scarlet through his veins was in fact, blue. That it meant something.
What would blood mean when my name and life-span reads in newspaper print?
The anger burns in my chest, the reflection staring back at me a paper mask of this hollow creature that I am. That I have become. Shadowed grey eyes staring back at me from a too-pale face, my bare chest was quivering as I clutch desperately at the lavish porcelain fittings.
"Where did your pride get you, Father?"
Not angry, never angry. What right do I have to anger? Anger is for the righteous, the just and the brave. A Slytherin has no need for anger. Not me.
"Where did your riches and your pure blood take you?"
Those grey eyes stare back at me. There is no answer to be found.
"You grovelled at the feet of another human being. You called him Master!"
Why is that face so tired?
"Why did you believe him?"
Softer, softer, barely audible now.
"Where is my prison, Father? Where am I to hide?"
Why do I question you? I thought I was you.
Am I a child again, looking at the world so blindly? When was the last time I truly believed this blood in my veins meant anything? When did I believe the lies of the snake who no longer hides his face, the man whose become what his lies have told him. Deathless, some say.
What a curse to bear.
The face in the mirror is old now.
"You disgraced us all."
The words are deathly calm, an affirmation to the thoughts that sluggishly move through my brain. I cannot deny my failures. The acknowledgement brings a nod, a cordial stage smile that whispers of approval. The eyes no longer speak to me.
I turn my head away, reaching for the spotless black robes that await a body to hide away. I tug at them, pull at them, moulding them into place, before, satisfied, they are smoothed of wrinkles.
I reach for the comb upon the sink, taming away frivolous wisps into tame respectability.
Grey-eyed and blond-haired my fathers reflection stares back from where mine should have been and I wonder where, in these past years, I could have gone to.
The dull knocking upon wood pries at my attention.
"Hurry Draco! We must not be late for the celebration."
Mother's voice is filled with noxious relief, spared now from concern or despair.
The dutiful son replies, voice smoothed of the darkness of the mind, into a refined drawl, "Coming, Mother."
Grey eyes stare back at me from the mirror as the child disappears, a man in his place. My Father smiles back at me from the Man in the Mirror.
My reflection is no longer my own.
It is you.
Fingers stretch out to the face that I recognise, brushing the ice-cold mirror without hesitance before I turn, stalking stiffly through the doorway in search of whatever Fate has left for me.
"Goodbye, Father."
AN: An adaption from something that I felt (and still feel)I could do much better. Not entirely sure how satisfied I am with it. Feedback is appreciated.