A/N: The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition
Wimbourne Wasps.
Beater 2 : Prompt - Write a Letter to a Rival/Enemy.
Optional Prompts included: 4. (quote) "If envy were a fever, all the world would be ill." - Danish Proverb; 5.(quote) "I will always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't." -W. Somerset Maughan; 13. (emotion) jealousy; 14. (word) freedom.
Draco L. Malfoy.
Ward 32
St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries,
London.
Mr Harry J. Potter,
Firstly I want you to know that I am not writing you this letter out of the goodness of my heart – it's a required part of the programme that I'm on to prove that I'm not a Death Eater anymore. (It also means that everything I write in this letter is going to be read by the leaders of this programme). I guess it's better than spending a couple of years in Azkaban, but I wanted to clarify before you read it.
I am not, and have never been, particularly adept at apologies and reconciliations, but that predominantly comes from a propensity against having to stoop to that level of grovelling. I don't do grovelling. Anyway, I've to write a letter and apologise for the things I've done and explain why I did them… So here goes:
I knew all about you even before you knew about you; the Boy who Lived, of course all of us who grew up in wizarding households knew your name and your story. I think I knew more about you than most because my father went on and on about you… I think secretly he would have quite liked to take you in – if he had been in a position where that might have been possible, but it never would have been with Dumbledore on the case. I think at that point my father was still unsure about you – there were lots of rumours about you while you were still a baby. I remember one time when I was about nine I asked why you were so important, and he told me that you must be special – either you were the next Dark Lord, with powers that would have rivalled the one you had defeated and that you would need people to be willing to follow you; or if that wasn't the case then you would be powerful and could be dangerous and you would need guidance. If he had his way, he would have taken you in and tried his best to introduce you to our ways. My father wanted influence – and some influence can be gotten through the expenditure of money, but with your protector hanging around he knew that there was no way that he could get to you… however there was me… I didn't know who you were the first time I met you in Madam Malkin's shop in Diagon Alley, but when I found out I could have kicked myself! From the second I got my letter my father had been priming me to 'make friends with Harry Potter', he wanted me to be friends with you so that he could find out more about you.
If I'm honest I didn't want to be friends with you in the first place – I thought you'd be annoying, especially after so many years living with muggles! Alright, perhaps that's not entirely the truth, but I didn't want to be friends for the same reason as my father wanted… You – precious Potter, with your fame, and your scar – and everyone who already liked you without ever having spoken to you before. I wanted to be your friend, probably because you had everything I ever wanted – people liked you and respected you, but not because your parents were rich and channelled money to buy you into things, and not because you were famous! Of course that meant people knew who you were, but they liked you because of what you were… Whereas I had Crabbe and Goyle, and neither of them were ever going to be brain of Britain, but they wouldn't have hung around with me unless their fathers hadn't known mine… I felt like their carer most of the time, they didn't want friendship, they just wanted protection. That's not what I wanted! I wanted people that I could have a laugh with, not have to explain what words longer than two syllables meant! That's why I was so pissed off when you rejected me on the train – you had already decided to be friends with Weasley, yet when I tried to make friends with you, you snubbed me entirely!
I wasn't annoyed because my father wanted me to be friends with you, but because I wanted to be friends with you! You had everything, you had friends who you had chosen, you had that freedom… you didn't have someone checking up on your every move while at school, and that was what I wanted. Since that point I knew that I had no hope of being your friend, and that my father would be furious that I had not managed the one thing that he had wanted me to do while I was in my first year…
I believe there is a saying: "If envy were a fever, all the world would be ill." I can't help agree with it, because now looking back at those first years at school, it wasn't that I didn't like you, but I was jealous. I was jealous of how much the professors (and everyone else) fawned over you, I was jealous of your friends and your freedom, and how you always seemed to get away with everything! I understand now that jealousy was the wrong thing, because when I could have done something to repair my first mistakes in introducing myself, as the year went on I couldn't fix the way that I treated you or your friends. That was wrong and I am apologising for that.
I didn't really want to be a Death Eater either, but I didn't really have much of a choice in that matter. Once they had all moved into the Manor, and my father was in Azkaban, the decision was really made for me, I had to be the man of the house and step up. I tried during (what should have been) our last year at school to change that, but it was difficult while living in the same house as them. When you were brought to the Manor I tried to pretend that it wasn't you, and it seemed to work because you got away – but the anger of the Dark Lord after that was horrible… It really made me realise just how wrong it all was. But I couldn't change my mind, I wasn't willing to be set upon in my own house, and I didn't really want to fight against my own parents during the battle at Hogwarts. But when it was all over, I knew everything I had done, and have done in the past eight years was wrong. I've been a liar, a bigot, and a disgusting excuse for a human being. Unfortunately I know that reputation is the one that will stay with me.
"I will always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't." I wrote at the beginning of this letter that I don't do grovelling – and I don't. I've never been good at saying what I really believe, I've never been allowed to before; but now I am and I'm being honest and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the past and who I was; but now I'm going to be different, now I'm going to be the person I want to be, and this is how I'm starting… Not by grovelling but by legitimately apologising. Perhaps one day I won't be thought of as a Death Eater anymore, but I doubt it… For now I'll be satisfied with having apologised to you properly, (thank you for reading all of this); and perhaps one day in the future we will be able to be friends or something like I hoped we could have been when we first started at school.
From (hopefully less of an enemy now),
Draco L. Malfoy.
A/N: Thank you for reading this! I hope you've enjoyed it and I'd love it if you could take the time to drop me a wee review! Thanks :)