Outcast

"You little idiot! You inconsiderate good for nothing PRAT!" She screeches. She reaches

back her long, bony hand and slaps him across the face so hard, he is knocked

backwards. He is stunned for a moment. He sees stars, but quickly does his vision clear

up. She screams insults at him. Her venomous seminar follows, seemingly eternal. He

cowers at, not her words-which he has heard time and time again at his own house- but the fury within. She throws her hand back and forth on his face numerous times, in the form of punches and slaps. She screams much worse insults, but the height is the pain. "Crucio!" She screeches. White hot pain explodes on his chest and climbs up his body, entangling him like rope. Hot blank agony slithers up his being. He feels a sensation something like fire crawl up his body. He uses every fiber in his being not to scream; he won't give her the satisfaction of hearing it. He falls to the ground and writhers around on the ground, but she is obviously unsatisfied. He suffers minutes of this before he cracks. He screams. The sound of his screams hammer around the walls of the Room Of Requirement, as if he is hearing someone else's gut-wrenching shouts. Its an awful sound to hear. It is deep scream that comes from the depths of his soul. It is enough to drive any person with a heart insane, but not the inflictor, in that she is a senseless, rabid, deranged being with no place. She finally lets go. She grabs his shirt collar and yanks him off of the ground.

"You'd better do better if you want the Dark Lord's approval. No mistakes!" She hisses at him. She drops him and steps on him on her way back into the Vanishing Cabinet and closes the door, But not before shouting imsults about how he has failed his family name, he is u worthy to be a pureblood, he is disgraced, and deserves death, but we are kind people. we let him love. He lays there, on the hard ground of the Room of Requirement, with hot tears trickling down his temples and blood coming from his lip from where his aunt had punched him earlier. And he wishes for death. He truly does. An aching thought from the back of his mind whispers to him.

"Then why not quit? Why didn't you refuse and take the death?" Bu draco knows the answer. He wants to fight. That is the answer isn't it? He wants to fight. He wants to make each and every Death Eater sorry for putting them through what he has been put through. To make his wretched father sorry. Sorry for breeding him like a murderer.

A devil.

A Death Eater.

For every snide comment he has casually swept at that Granger. For every provocation of Potter or Weasley that ended in detention for them. For every first year he casually hexed. A part of it was just him. Just his cruel self. His cruel heartless self. And he acknowledged the fact. But most of it was his injected nature. A nature given to him by his father and his aunt. His nature. No. His soul. His given soul. His predetermined soul. He was always going to be a Death Eater. Always. Draco just didn't know that. But his father did. It was the reason for the way he was raised. For every lesson his father gave him on 'wretched Muggles and their filthiness'. And Mudbloods and their rightful place, death. And blood traitors. And the awful ways his father described them. Draco didn't know it, but he was being corrupted. The beliefs of his family were being permanently injected into him. Permanently, yes. Agreeably, no. Draco does not agree with his father's beliefs. Draco hates Granger, Potter, and Weasley, honestly. But not because Granger is a muggle-born. Not a Mudblood. Not anymore. Draco sees that now. Not because Weasley associates himself with halfbloods and muggle-borns. Not a blood-traitor. Not anymore. Not because Potter is famous. Not a stuck-up, snobby, arrogant, better-than-you. Not anymore. He hates them because of their greatness. Their pureness. Their freedom. They have a choice, and they chose to fight. The choice Draco would've chosen. But he didn't have the choice.

He tries to assess himself, but he is too emotionally drained to do anything. He may as well not have feelings at all, because they seem to have disappeared. He may as well be a nothing. Draco would much prefer being a nothing to what he must do. He finally realizes that he will have to leave eventually. He gathers himself. His body aches, but he tells himself what his father tells him after punishing him. He tells him to tough it up. He is not to have weakness. Those with the "honor" of being branded have a reputation to withhold, and vulnerability is not a part of this image.

Draco stands numbly in front of the door of the Room of Requirement for a few moments before he realizes that he will have to move his legs to get anywhere. He walks stealthily out of the Room and puts on his swagger. He struts down the halls, trying to keep his composure. He turns around a corner to find Potter talking to that Granger. Potter turns around and glares at Draco as if reading his mind. Draco walks on, acting as if this doesn't bother him, but it does. Potter gave him such a knowing look. Has he put it together? Does he know? Surely not. Potter can't have put the pieces of such an intricate and genius plan together. Draco puts the thought aside. He has too much on his mind to be mulling over Potter's intel on this plan, which he can't, under any circumstances, fail.

Draco arrives in front of the bathroom. This is the one that is abandoned, no one goes in this one. He barely makes it into the lavatory before he breaks down. His knees hit the ground and his head falls into his hands. He sobs. Deeply. Weep after weep come. They won't seem to stop. He repeats the same phrase lver and over in his head.

I can't. I can't. I can't.

He sobs until no tears fall from his eyes. They seem to have abandoned him, too. He is finally so dried out that he lays there on the floor, cheeks red and swollen, and stares out the window, at the beautiful scenery. The lusciously green grass sways back and forth in the warm wind. The blooming trees wave at him. The birds in the sky fly freely and happily around him. The beautiful, cloudless sky beckons him to come play with it as he used to do as a boy. Funny. Draco has noticed that the most terrible things happen on the most beautiful days. He would be the one who would have noticed it. Terrible things seem to happen to him.

Curfew has almost passed when Draco finally leaves the bathroom. He has spent the last two hours yelling, crying, screaming, cursing, praying, sobbing, and begging, to no one in particular, that this burden could be lifted. But, of course, it can't be. It never will be. Draco realizes that his life is practically over. If he fails, he dies. If he succeeds, eternal glory from the side that Draco already knows will fail- its in a prophesy, Draco thinks, why try to change it?- then what? When the Dark side loses, and Death Eaters are killed off, put in Azkaban, or forced into hiding, what will Draco do? The Dark Lord has already ruined his life enough. His father is in Azkaban. His mother is somewhere between depression and madness. His family could care less about him. Why would the world have compassion on a slimy back-stabbing coward who could have had so much. who was so great. who jad it all. until he became corrupted. but the truth is, Draco was always corrupted. It started with a mental thought.

I'm so much better. So much better than these freaks.

Then it turned into an attitude. He would swagger around the school as if he owned it. Then it turned into words. The first time it slipped out.

Filthy Mudblood.

And Draco was ashamed. Until it became a habit. No one would do anything about it. It's not so bad! He thought. Until It became a way of life. A definition. A definition Draco didn't want. What he wouldn't give to take back that definition.

And according to his aunt, he should be proud. Proud of this definition. This characteristic. This representation. Proud to be a pure blood. Proud to have been chosen. Proud to have been branded with this cursed mark, which is the barrier between him and good. He didn't want this. If it was up to him, which it never is, he would be so much better. A fighter for what he believed in. What is right. But this will never happen. That cursed mark ensures that. As long as that mark is on his left arm, he will repel respect and dignity. He will be an outcast for all of his life.