Disclaimer: Harry Potter and co. – particularly Draco Malfoy – are not the property of me. Thought you ought to know. *faints*
Author's Note: Last edited 9/4/2003. I love this fic. Pairing pieces are just too much fun, especially when they consist entirely of metaphors. Then again, I could just be mental.
*******
The hair did him in.
Not blond, like his own tresses. He despised blond; it reminded him of what he was. A monster. A clone of his father. The same cornsilk halo; a false allusion to innocence. He couldn't stand to see it any more than he already did – in the mirror, every godforsaken day of his life.
And brunettes? He couldn't stand them. Such a dull, unimaginative colour offended his senses. He loathed seeing the dirt-hued strands framing Pansy's face, or adorning the top of his lackey's heads. Brown, to him, was not a colour, but a lack of colour – denoted to its possessors as an afterthought.
Black – well, you couldn't get him started on black, or it would never end. The messy obsidian mop drove him mad – the light reflecting off Potter's ebony curtain, as if a spotlight really did follow around the Gryffindor boy. Oh, it was worse than even blond – something not just reminding him of what he was, but of what he could never be.
Glaring green jealousy like Potter's eyes; painted as dark as the onyx hair. He could never have that; no amount of charms or potions would change it, no matter if his hair looked black or not. It wasn't how it was supposed to be.
He was supposed to be blond. He was supposed to be a monster. And he wasn't supposed to care about something as irrelevant as hair.
Oh, but how could you help not to care about that hair? Abrupt, and roaring, like a wildfire. Through any crowd that hair would shine, and catch the attention of all passer-by. That hair was passion; that hair was a designed gift. That hair spurred him, and made him forget about pale blond like silk-spun moonlight, and all that it entailed, resting on his scalp. That hair reduced him to a visceral state of mind; it made him lose control.
That hair resided on the head of someone who was, by name, his sworn enemy.
And that hair, worn by one of any other name, could never burn as brightly.
He wanted it. He needed it. He loved it.
And all that lie beneath it.
He desired an enemy like nothing else in his cold heart, and for that, he could almost despise the hair. He could almost shear it all off and let it fall to the floor, or tarnish it with any number of substances; kill it, until it could lure him no longer, and no one would ever know it was because he adored it so.
No one would see the tears, or understand them.
But he could never do it. He hated it, but he loved it even more, for how much he hated it. He needed that fire; the fire reflected in those silk-spun strands. He needed to feel it. To feel.
The hair did him in.