The acknowledgement of one's propensities is the path to truly knowing.
Ever since he knew it, he changed. Change was an ambiguous thing- to be or not to be was the ubiquitous question.
He saw it.
He saw it in the look in his eyes- reflected terrifyingly in the mirror by his bed; in the silver at the green-replete dinner table; in the murky sheen of the Black Lake. He saw it in the inadvertent halting of his own footsteps, in the forced, painful profanities in his speech that burned his conscience and clenched his insides.
He saw the paragon of obsession. Of Infatuation. Sometimes, even insanity.
Some would call it realisation.
The recipient of these strong, repressed emotions he never exuded played the unknowing, volatile role of temptation- The person Draco Malfoy wanted was all but oblivious.
The young Slytherin watched; watched silently, lustfully from the sidelines- His love; so beautiful, so strong.
His preoccupation would only mature- a young boy of fifteen with a benign crush; and then a man who dared to love.
The intensity of the passion that closed around his chest at random, fierce bursts overwhelmed him; an emotion that mercurial was beyond the comprehension of a mere teenager. He questioned his normalcy, his sanity; a love likened to the one he fantasized about was forbidden, dire.
Malfoy men didn't stoop to the level of unnatural limerance- They were heirs. Powerful, the world's envy. A pure woman to birth his sons, unbridled influences and an obsession with an untainted bloodline- Those were all the accessories he was told he would need.
But fate would ruin it all.
He caged his emotions under the burden of humiliation, abandonment. What he had presumed all his life- fostered by the illustrious image of his mother by his father's arm- had shattered. He thought himself an animal, a monster, a disgrace- But nevertheless, a lover.
When the time came to pledge his life to the darkness, he would admonish them all.
After all, there was only so much coercion and manipulation would do against the arrant refusal of repression.
Betrayal.
He knew that was the word for it.
Draco Malfoy would grow out of prejudices, break away from subservience, embrace the freedom to surrender to reality.
After all, it wasn't everyday that the Malfoy heir realized that he was in love with the enemy- A Boy Who Lived.
