Draco sighed and took a long drag from his cigarette.

He sat cross legged on the floor between two sinks in the abandoned girl's bathroom that was notorious for being the haunt of Moaning Myrtle. There was some water on the tile, and his robes had gotten a little wet. He had loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves, taking long, absentminded hits from his cigarette.

Crabbe and Goyle were probably looking for him by now. He smirked; he had been in the bathroom chain smoking for almost half an hour. They were probably running into walls from the lack of his direction. His grey blue eyes were no longer as cold as they once were, but the darkness that had overcome them didn't make him seem very much warmer either. He looked scared, but at the same time, defiantly prepared.

Exhaling quickly, he let the smoke billow around his face. Effectively finishing his cigarette, he reached up slightly and dropped the smoldering filter into one of the sinks above him. It released a slightly audible hiss when it touched the water.

He sighed again, thinking about everything that was going on. His father, ordering him, or even more appropriately, begging him to become a slave to the Dark Lord. The fear he felt about becoming a Death Eater was nearly too strong to put into words. He'd always awaited the time in his life that this would happen, as he'd known for years now that it inevitably would. But now faint traces of the dark mark would burn on his upper arm from time to time. He was petrified, and he knew that his father, and for that matter, the Dark Lord could sense his fear.

He wasn't doing very well in school. Professor Slughorn had made teasing him for his mistakes into a habit, as he was once the shining star in Potions class. But the title had been stripped from him and given to Potter, oh that conniving Potter. There was no way that the simple change in teachers could have somehow awakened a genius potion maker inside of him. It was suspicious, but obviously, Draco had much more pressing matters on his mind than how precious Harry Potter had suddenly become a brainiac.

Precious Harry Potter. Malfoy let out a slightly cynical laugh. The Boy Who lived. His sworn enemy ever since they had met in Diagon Alley before first year.

If only he knew how precious he really was.

Draco dug into his pocket. When he found the blade, he traced it slightly with his fingertips before removing it from his robes. In an oblivious state, Draco turned the blade over in his hand a few times, the image of Harry, his defiant little facial expression that he wore whenever Draco had actually gotten up the courage to confront him. He hadn't seen it much that year, he'd been too busy wallowing in his own self pity to bother even trying to go near Potter without openly sobbing.

Anger started to bubble down in Draco's stomach. He took the razor blade and pressed it threateningly to a place on his inner arm, right beneath the bend of his elbow. With slight hesitation, he closed his eyes, clamped his jaw, pressed down, and dragged the blade across his pale skin. Instantly he felt it; the pain that simultaneously came with a heavy rush of emotion. He opened his eyes slowly, letting out a breath, and examined his handy work. The blood was running, hot and sticky around his arm in a steady ribbon, like a macabre bracelet. He found another place further down his arm, that hadn't already been littered with scars. Without closing his eyes this time, he pressed the blade down again, watching as the path it left split his skin into a little dip, that bubbled up with blood. The bubbles burst, and two little streaks trailed down around his arm once more. The first cut was dripping on the tile now. The anger was bubbling up in his stomach faster than the cuts could release it. With no hesitation this time, he made a quick slice in his skin right above his wrist. This one bled a lot faster than the others; he was getting closer.

Here he was, the blade was right over his wrist. He wanted it so badly that he didn't know why he was even crying. He should be laughing; this was it, he'd finally gotten up the courage. Why hadn't he done it yet? His chest began to swell with the pent up anger, and then he heard a voice. It startled him, and he dropped the blade as his hand shook, leaving a tiny nick above his vein. There was a tiny metallic noise as the razor found the ground.

"Stop! Don't do that to yourself, just stop it!"

Myrtle, the infamous ghost that haunted this bathroom, glided into the air above the stall in front of him. He looked up at her, the dim light giving her an eerie glow, as if she was more than just a ghost.

She glided over to him in a huff, her tiny fists clenched, and tears streaking down her transparent face as she stared.

"Why are you doing that?"

Draco narrowed his eyes at her, doing his best to put on his mean facade, but the tears were still welling behind his eyelids. Once they overflowed, he buried his face in his hands.

"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!" he muttered hurriedly, grabbing fistfuls of his white blond hair and smearing blood on his face. He pushed himself up and stared Myrtle straight into her eyes. A few strands of his hair clung to the blood on his face like spider webs. "Why do you even care? What's your problem?"

Myrtle's chest rose.

"In case you haven't noticed, I never got to be a real teenager. I didn't have the chance, and you just want to throw it all away."

"You have no idea what I'm going through," Draco hissed angrily, rolling up his left sleeve and showing her the faint traces of the Dark Mark that were sizzling under his skin. Her lips parted a little bit in understanding, and her eyes softened.

"Draco, you have a choice-"

"No I don't! You just don't get it, do you? He'll kill me; he'll kill my family," Draco choked on the last word. Narcissa Malfoy crept into his mind; His mother was a very pretty, very loving woman that would do anything for her son, even if it meant her own death. She'd been telling him the same thing; That he had a choice.

He started sobbing. Myrtle placed her hands on his shoulder, making him shiver.

He hadn't even heard the door creak open.

Draco turned around to look himself in the mirror; blood stained face, disheveled hair, nearly invisible white eyebrows that looked even more so due to the dark circles under his eyes. Even as he stood there, the blood that had been pooling between his legs had formed a tiny stream leading into the sink's drain.

He sniffled, watching as the traces of water turned some of the blood pink.

But his vision faltered for a moment, and he saw the one person that he really wanted to see, watching him from the entrance of the bathroom with a surprised look on his face; he knew he'd been spotted. Thinking that he was hallucinating, Draco squinted and turned around, a little hopeful smile on his face.

"Harry?"