I was lying down alone on my bed up in my room in the Malfoy Manor this morning still terribly sore and bruised from the beating I took last night. I looked down at his arms and saw the familiar cuts and scars on my arms that I had given with my knife and made myself endure daily. Nobody knew about my real lifestyle, not even Crabbe, Goyle, or Pansy. None of them knew how I longed for someone that I could call my real friend and not just some brainless sidekick that I knew deep down didn't really care for me one way or the other. And none of them knew that I had made a habit of cutting myself to try get the pain I was feeling inside out of me. The cutting never helped though. I might try to get the pain I was feeling out of me but it always came back even stronger after my self-inflicted cuts had healed.

Ever since the three people who pretended to be my friends, Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy, had all moved back home for the summer I had completely lost touch with them. They never bothered to write to me. Why should they when they didn't really consider themselves my friends anyway. I knew it was probably better that I didn't hear from them but I had to admit, a small part of me did miss them. Without them, I can't even pretend to myself that I had any real friends at Hogwarts. Those three never were true friends of course, and I knew and that they only pretended to be to stay on my father's good side, but sometimes thanks to their companionship, I was able to pretend they really cared about me and I was able to keep my feelings of friendlessness at bay.

As I thought about my so called friends desire to stay on my father's good side, my mind wandered over to my father. I knew that Lucius fully expected me to take his place as Voldemort's right hand man and wanted me to get the dark mark and start serving him before this year ended. My father had told me that Voldemort desperately needed a presence inside Hogwarts to keep an eye on what Professor Dumbledore was doing to try to thwart the death eater's plans. More importantly, my father had recently told me that Voldemort needed someone inside Hogwarts to put a permanent end to Harry Potter so that the death eaters could get rid of the hope that Harry brought to the wizarding world for a brighter future without Voldemort. Ever since Voldemort made his return to the wizarding world he had been trying with a vengeance to destroy Harry Potter, Dumbledore, and the order of the phoenix to ensure no one would be able to stand against him.

So far though, Voldemort's plans had all been thwarted by the Order of the Phoenix. Unfortunately, that just made him even more determined to rout the order of the phoenix and gain control over the wizarding world. Deep down inside me I wanted nothing more than to oppose Voldemort with all my heart and soul and to run off to tell Dumbledore I wanted to join the order of the phoenix. But a more logical part of me knew if I refused to obey Voldemort and carry out the plans he had for me I'd just be beaten again by my father for embarrassing him in front of Voldemort and probably put under the Crutiatus Curse until I finally agreed to obey. I was constantly conflicted between my fear of my father and Voldemort and my desire to break away from them and be my own person and fight against them. The only place I knew that I could safely be honest about my feelings was my diary.

In its pages, were things I wish I had had the courage to do, things I wish I could have said, what I honestly thought about my father, the people I knew at school and the situation I found myself in with Voldemort and my father. I knew that it would be a huge embarrassment to my father if anyone found out I kept a diary, and let's just say I had learned early on in life that it was best not to embarrass my father. That's why as soon I got my diary I bewitched its cover to look like a book teaching its readers how to perform the unforgivable curses. So the secret that I kept a diary was safe so long as nobody bothered to try to read the book I kept that looked like it was about the unforgivable curses.

I wondered from my bed over to my diary on my desk. My cuts and bruises inflicted by my father caused even this short walk to be painful but I made it to the desk and sat down on my chair. I began to flip through its pages. I turned to entry from my first year at Hogwarts. The entry reminded me that during my first year I had hoped to make some real friends instead of just some sidekicks that would only follow me because of my father's standing with the dark lord. It also reminded me that my father forced me not to befriend anyone he did not approve of by threatening to beat and curse me if dared to stray away from his expectations of me.

Several of my other diary entries detailed my feelings toward three particular people, Harry Potter and his two best friends. I had confessed to my diary that I had always admired Harry Potter and his friends and would have liked nothing better than to call a truce from the constant fighting between me and him and befriend him as I had always wanted to. My diary also was the only thing in the world that knew my true feelings about my father. In many of my entries, I had poured out my heart to my diary telling it all about how I resented my father for forcing me to be enemies with them just because Harry had defeated Voldemort once as a baby and now Lucius was terrified that if his son befriended Voldemort's greatest enemy, it may cause Voldemort and the death eaters to think he was conspiring against them. I had plenty of entries in my diary about my admiration for those three and how deep down one of my greatest wishes to befriend them and become the fourth member of the golden trio.

All this emotional turmoil within me has caused me to hate my life right now. Once again my thoughts turned to the possibility of suicide. That was something I thought about a lot lately. I couldn't really think of anyone who would miss me. On the contrary, I could only think of people who would be happy that I was gone. Harry and his friends for one. They would probably be overjoyed to be rid of their longtime enemy. My father was another one that came to mind. He would probably not be sad to see me go either. With me gone he would have one less thing to worry about and he would not have to concern himself with the possibility that I would rebel against him and Voldemort. For years now I have been searching for something or someone to give my life meaning and after all this time my hope of finding something is slowly dying out. I know if I don't find something meaningful soon I won't be able to live much longer.

Right now the only future I can see for myself is being forced to be a death eater like my father which would mean living my live as a murderer. The only other plausible option that I can see is to kill myself before that happens. The only thing that has kept me from killing myself already is my desperate hope that I will someday find a way to break free of my father and live my life as I want to.

I flipped to the most recent page of the diary which contained the entry I had put in just last night. I remember the entry word for word but I read it again anyway. The entry had been written with a shaky hand from the pain my father had inflicted on me and teardrops had fallen upon the pages last night as I wrote it.

Dear diary, it read

Today I have been beaten twice by my father and I'm pretty sure they were both because he was upset over something else and took out his anger on me. I wish I could have someone, ANYONE, who understands how my life is right now. When I first went away to school I really thought my cutting days might be over. What an idiot I was to think that. Now, several years later, going into my next year at Hogwarts I've made no true friends. Instead I've only alienated people with my constant bullying of them and the only thing I've got to show for it are several more deep scars on my arms. I really need to find someone to talk to about this.

I begin to cry after I finish reading this entry, and reach for my knife again. I need to get this pain outside of me. I slide my knife over my forearms and let the blood pool on my arms and let it slide down onto the floor. I also let my tears run down my face and fall to the floor to mix with my blood as I think about my possible future.

"DRACO!" The shout from downstairs startled me out of my thoughts. "Draco!" my father called again. "Get down here. It's time for us to go."

I groaned in dismay. I had almost forgotten that today, the yearly quidditch world cup was happening and before the match began my father had a certain errand to go on. I had not the foggiest idea what sort of errand he was talking about or why he insisted so strongly that I accompany him but I had learned better than to go against my father's wishes.

I pulled on some clothes and covered up my arms to hide the cuts on them, and washed my face so that my father wouldn't see I had been crying. He would only take tears as a sign of weakness and scold me for it.

By the time I got downstairs to him I looked presentable again and I had my typical emotionless expression on my face. I was always too afraid to show any real emotion in front of my father for fear that my true feelings toward my father would come out and I would be punished for speaking against him.

My father was waiting for me by the fireplace. As soon as I made my way over to him he threw floo powder into the fireplace and stepped inside and roughly pulled me in after him. "Theodore Notte's Manor!" he shouted and my heart skipped a beat. I knew exactly who Theodore Nott was and if there was any place in the world I did not want to be going to, it was his house. After Voldemort's return, the Nott family had been one of the first death eater families to rally back to his cause. Voldemort had taken up residents inside Nott's manor and had been using it as a makeshift headquarters since his return during my fourth year of school.

There was only one reason my father would be taking us to Nott's place, and that was to confer with Voldemort himself about something. I felt incredibly nauseous as the floo powder took me closer and closer to the one place I did not want to be and the nausea wasn't because I was being spun around mercilessly by the floo powder either.

I sadly resigned myself to the fact that I was about to come face to face with lord Voldemort and there was nothing I could do about it.

End of chapter one

A/N: Hey guys. Let me know what you think of my first chapter by dropping me a review. Because more reviews motivate me to update a lot quicker.