A/N: A weird little ficlet, NOT in SIS or LL Universe. Draco thinks about
what he's lost. And what he never even had in the first place.
A Simple Choice.
*You could have been someone,* they say. Their heads shake sadly, disappointed, as if really they hadn't expected this, not from you.
*I am someone,* you reply. *I am Draco Malfoy.*
If you ever said this to them, not one would understand. They've never known real, proper, seeping temptation. It is delicious smoke coiling in his veins, the bite of a tangy, streaming fruit. They've been kept away from this, kept somewhere where everything is right or wrong and simple, where it's bright and clean and *good,* or at least with good intentions, and anything that doesn't quite fit is smoothed out until, when you squint, it does. It has become a ridged map for them to live by.
He's built like he is and he's learnt a long time ago not to apologise for it, and not to boast either. He won't be like Snape, crawling back when he knows he's had too much and then rubbing the sooty darkness away on the corner of Dumbledore's robes. He won't try to be absolved. He's here through choice, not through the fear of others.
But when he's alone he still feels the softest, lightest stroke of featherweight hair. He only felt it once, in passing, in a fight that was of no consequence in the end. Potter had pushed him, he had stumbled, his hand had brushed up, swept the littlest touch. It will always be there, a sweet whisper far too open for him, and his fingers will tingle and a tiny bittersweet pang of longing will run through him, shiver-sharp, of red and gold, a shock of hair and eyes and a slightly ungainly grace, something foreign that might just have become familiar, if he'd ever let it. This is until he rubs the mark branded on his wrist that will never wash away either, nor the invisible bloodstains on his hands.
And he thinks, *when we meet again, I will have to kill him. Or he will kill me.*
Because he's not a boy any longer. It isn't about a dragon, or points, or making him notice. He understand this, but Potter won't. This isn't part of the map he has, he won't see something that is necessary. And he didn't ever feel that softest touch on his hair.
A Simple Choice.
*You could have been someone,* they say. Their heads shake sadly, disappointed, as if really they hadn't expected this, not from you.
*I am someone,* you reply. *I am Draco Malfoy.*
If you ever said this to them, not one would understand. They've never known real, proper, seeping temptation. It is delicious smoke coiling in his veins, the bite of a tangy, streaming fruit. They've been kept away from this, kept somewhere where everything is right or wrong and simple, where it's bright and clean and *good,* or at least with good intentions, and anything that doesn't quite fit is smoothed out until, when you squint, it does. It has become a ridged map for them to live by.
He's built like he is and he's learnt a long time ago not to apologise for it, and not to boast either. He won't be like Snape, crawling back when he knows he's had too much and then rubbing the sooty darkness away on the corner of Dumbledore's robes. He won't try to be absolved. He's here through choice, not through the fear of others.
But when he's alone he still feels the softest, lightest stroke of featherweight hair. He only felt it once, in passing, in a fight that was of no consequence in the end. Potter had pushed him, he had stumbled, his hand had brushed up, swept the littlest touch. It will always be there, a sweet whisper far too open for him, and his fingers will tingle and a tiny bittersweet pang of longing will run through him, shiver-sharp, of red and gold, a shock of hair and eyes and a slightly ungainly grace, something foreign that might just have become familiar, if he'd ever let it. This is until he rubs the mark branded on his wrist that will never wash away either, nor the invisible bloodstains on his hands.
And he thinks, *when we meet again, I will have to kill him. Or he will kill me.*
Because he's not a boy any longer. It isn't about a dragon, or points, or making him notice. He understand this, but Potter won't. This isn't part of the map he has, he won't see something that is necessary. And he didn't ever feel that softest touch on his hair.