A/N: Just a short little fic to relieve me of my writer's block. A little angsty.

Title: Sleep

I'm so tired. I can't sleep.

I want to, just to slip into oblivion and not care about anything until morning light. Or maybe later.

Nothing more, just to close my eyes and not think, not worry, not…love.

Everything's quiet; my room silences all life around me. God, why can't I sleep?

Its been like this for the past few months; sitting here and trying to block out the silence. Trying to not think about her. Not to think about anything really.

Not exactly winning the fight.

This is the only time when I can just be something else, to say and think of all the things that really matter to me. All the things that I should worry about, but don't. And I don't care if I'm lying to everybody around me. I don't care what they think of me.

But when I'm out of here, when I'm in the light, when they can see… I know who I have to be. And I slip into it with the ease of long practice.

Sometimes, I wonder if I'll ever outgrow it. I don't think I ever will. I was bred into it.

It's so easy to put it on.

Until I met her.

She was the only one who made me ashamed of what I'd become. The only one to make me feel guilt at all the things that I did on a whim.

The only one to have ever made me feel again.

I've always been cold, almost numb. I never knew it until I met her. Funny, how life likes to slap you around and shove what's really going on in your face.

Then I guess she was life. She sure hit pretty hard for a girl.

She was my life. She was the one who ever dared to get back at me. The only who ever stood up to my cruelty and pettiness.

I want to sleep. Please, let me sleep. Leave me alone, stop making me think these things, things that I don't deserve to ever have…

Back when I could, I dreamed. Dreamed of her, more specifically. Obvious, isn't it? All I think about is her, anyway.

I used to have a lot of dreams about her, all sorts. Most of them were memories, playing in my damn head all the time. Made me all the more angry when she wouldn't do what I wanted her to. Her friends were always with her, those pathetic imbeciles she called friends…

God, how I hated them. I hated how they could talk to her, hated how they could laugh with her and be the ones to bask in her company and just simply her…

It infuriated me beyond belief how they took her for granted.

If I had her, I would never have treated her as they did. No, I would cherish her, love her, protect her… all of these things and more.

So blind they were and only I saw it, only me and so I set out to break them. She didn't need them. She was too strong, too beautiful for them. They didn't deserve her. Only I did and I would prove it to her.

And I then tried to prove myself to her.

Sleep. No, I don't want to think about that. No, no, NO!!

"Draco? Why are you still up? Come back to bed." A woman's voice, sleep roughened, called out to him.

"I will. In a moment." He went to the fireplace, adding more bits of wood to it. Checking to be sure that she was asleep, he reached into a small box and took out a photograph. The picture didn't move; it was a muggle type of photo.

He looked at it for a long moment before tossing it into the fire.

"I'm sorry. God save me for you never could."

And even through the flames, her eyes haunted him.