Disclaimer: I own
nothing... cheers to you J.K
Summary: Draco writes Harry a
letter.... mild slash.
Falling...
I've been falling for as long as I can remember. Falling away from everyone. I didn't choose to live like this. I hate falling, especially from such heights as this. I know what it's like to have a life thrust upon you without any consideration for who you really are. What your really like. I've been falling into darkness since I was a child. Falling deeper and deeper inside of myself. Hiding myself from everyone. Hiding everything I've ever known. Everything I should have been. I'm not depressed and I don't hate myself. That would never be allowed. I hate what I have been molded into though. Molded into the epitome of my Father. An evil, devious, malicious aristocrat who has no regard for human life. No regard for anything. I have been falling into this life for what seems like eternity. I will continue to fall, to decline along a path I was forced to take. A path I despise with every part of my body. A path that pains me every day I am made to live it. It makes my mind ache with dread. With fear.
I was never allowed to cry, to hurt, to feel. Never allowed to love. I was denied love as a child. I'm denied love now. I'm not capable of love, I know that for a fact. I'm incapable of love because I don't believe in love. I've never been one to believe in something unless I've experienced it. When I was a child I didn't believe that there were people, muggles, who were not magical in any way. But then I saw them. I was shown how pathetic they were and then I believed, and I have been taught to despise them ever since. I've never experienced love so why should I believe it really exists? How can one possibly feel their heart swell with anything but hatred and anger, loathing and despise? I've always thought this. Of course until I started falling again, falling for you.
But it's not love. I know it's not love. I'm not a pathetic, lovesick Hufflepuff. Sure you can call it what you like. Lust. Infatuation. Dependency. Rapture. It may even be obsession, but it is definitely not love. But what eats me away inside is that you don't even notice the emotions that fill my heart when I look at you, when I'm near you. I portray it as hatred and loathing because I was brought up to hide what I'm truly feeling. I have no true feelings. People can use your feelings, manipulate them, twist them around until they have placed you in such a vulnerable position that you can't move. You can't breath. Your trapped. So, yes, it may seem like I hate you, but it's something else. Whenever I'm near you I feel something besides hatred and loathing and I'm not quite sure what it is. I've never felt it before. But I know it's not love.
I've tried to show you, you know? When I know no one else is looking. When I know your eyes are the only ones on me, I let my facade down, only for a brief moment. I do it just to see if you recognise the emotions in my eyes. But you don't. I doubt you ever will. As soon as your eyes narrow, bore into me with the hatred you feel, my feelings for you disappear and are replaced with the usual sneer and cold eyes, the same way you look at me.
The way you look at me with your sparkling emerald eyes. So bright. So alive. And I wish I could just see the warmth in them. The same warmth that fill them when you look at your friends. I want to see the emotions that I feel every time I see you. But it's always the same. Those eyes, taunting me. Ripping apart my heart. Shattering it into a thousand pieces. You. With you're brilliant eyes that are always hidden behind those stupid glasses. Glasses I would like to tear away from you're face. Throw them to the ground, sending shards of glass over the stone floor just so I can see your eyes. I want to see love in those eyes when I look into them. I want you to love me, but I don't want to love you. I'm incapable of love.
Perhaps what I feel for you is need. I need you. I need your love. It's more than want. I want a new broomstick. I certainly don't need one, but I want one more than ever. But not as much as I want you. Because I don't just want you. I need you.
You. With you're inky black hair that refuses to lie flat. Your raven locks that make you constantly look like you've just gotten out of bed. Your annoying hair that sticks out at all angles. That hair I would like nothing more than to put a gelling spell on. That soft, tempting hair that I would like nothing more than to run my fingers through. Feel it skimming between my fingers. I need to touch it. I need to touch you. I'm afraid of standing close to you anymore. I'm afraid I won't be able to hold myself back. I'm afraid the temptation of you, you in all your glory, will be too much. I'm afraid of the way you'll look at me when the need to touch you overcomes me and I finally reach out and run my fingers through your hair.
I remember in our fifth year when you beat me up. It hurt. It hurt more than you will ever imagine. Your scar may hurt you when you sleep but you hurt me in a way you will never know. You were doing more than punching and kicking me that day. You reached into my chest and squeezed the life out of my heart. I lay curled up in a ball after you were dragged away, not because you nearly broke my ribs, nor because of my broken nose. It was because you had squeezed my heart with such force that I was suffocating. Choking on everything I had ever felt for you. But you know what? The one thing that pulled me through. The only good thing to come out of that was the fact that you touched me. You actually touched my skin and I needed you to do that. I need you more than you will ever know.
I love watching you fly. I joined the Slytherin Quidditch team just to watch you fly. Since our first year when you chased after me, your heart full of Gryffindor bravery when I stole the Rememberal, I've wanted to watch you fly. The wind whipping at your robes, through your hair. The exhilaration etched into you're features is mesmerizing. The way you fly with such grace and ease. You were born to fly. I've known that ever since our first year at Hogwarts. I know that your free when you fly. Free from the weight in your heart. Yes, I know your heart is weighed down by things most people can't even comprehend. I know you better than you think. I have tried for nearly 7 years to understand you and I think I'm finally there.
I know you hate the fame you have. You didn't choose fame. It was thrown at you in the form of a spell from the tip of Voldemort's wand. I know you hate the attention. I know you hate the pointing, the staring, the talking behind hands whenever you pass. I see your face contort with fury every time it happens. People can be gullible. I certainly wasn't. I never once fell for those ridiculous articles the Daily Prophet printed about you. One just had to observe you for a while to realise they were nothing more than a bored journalist's imaginings. You are not conceited. You are not insane. You are not an attention-seeking brat. If anyone was guilty of that that I think it would be me. But I know you'd prefer to sit in the background while others bask in the spotlight. I remember the joy on your face when Weasley would have his 15 minutes of fame. When he was the one in the spotlight instead of you. It happened in our third year and in our fourth. And you relished every second of it. I know what it's like to live a life that was not meant for you. I understand how you feel, I truly do.
"You're dead potter." That's what I told you at the end of our fifth year. I told you I wanted you dead. That I was going to kill you. I offered you death with such malice and hostility that I truly believed that I could give you that and no more. You laughed at me. I laughed at me. Silently of course. It's because of you that my Father is a convicted Death Eater. It's because of you that he sits in a cell in Azkaban, his mind rotting away into nothingness. It's because of you I must live with the reputation he thrust upon me when he was caught. I must live a life of exclusion because of the retched mark that's burnt into his skin. That's what my family tells me anyway. But I know it's not your fault. I know it's his fault for getting himself mixed up in such sordid business in the first place. I know you were only doing what you were born to do that night at the Department of Mysteries. Just like all these years I have been doing what I was born to do. I wanted to tell you that at the end of our fifth year. But my stupid family pride that had been forced inside me since I was young got in the way. I had you alone for the second time that year and I did nothing but insult you.
The same when I used a tripping curse on you after you're DA meeting. I walked over to you, looking down at you. At you're body sprawled out on the ground. I wanted to offer you my hand. Pull you to a standing position then throw my arms around you and hold you in a tight embrace. But I didn't. I can't. I can't show you, how I feel. I'm scared of rejection. I'm scared of the humiliation when you laugh in my face. But most of all I'm scared of the hatred I'll see in you're eyes if I ever told you to your face.
Standing so very close to you in Umbridge's office was almost unbearable for me, even back then. Knowing what was coming to you, knowing what was going to happen to you and yet I did nothing. Nothing but twirl your wand in my fingers and stare at you. I loved the feel of your wand in my hand. It felt so right, like I was holding a part of you. I didn't comfort you like I should of. I didn't let you escape. You had to rely on Granger with her sob story. I wanted to follow you. Make sure you were alright. But I wasn't allowed. So many chances for me to tell you exactly what I think, what I feel and I've failed miserably ever single, painful time. And it's because of your eyes. I'm scared of what I'll see when I look into them. Scared of the rejection.
Your refection of the friendship I offered you nearly 7 years ago wounded me to my very core. I had never had a friend. I had never offered anyone my friendship until I laid eyes on you. And I've never offered it to anyone since. I don't have friends. I never have and I never will. I have my two cronies. I have 'associates' that are required in the life I am forced to live. I was a lonely child. I am a lonely teenager and I'm doomed to be a lonely adult. I don't care though. Why should I? I've never known friendship so I don't know what it feels like to have a friend, nor what it's like to feel the void a lost friendship leaves in you. To see the look in a friend's eyes when the friendship can no longer exist.
Your eyes. Constantly taunting me. Mocking me because of the life I was thrown into. The life I was forced to take. I didn't choose it. I don't know anything about choices. My choices have always been made for me without consideration for what I want. What I need.
I need you. I am certain of that. I need your love. Not just anyones love, but your love. And now I see that I finally have a choice. I can choose to tell you, or I can choose to continue my decline. Continue falling into a life of nothingness. This is my choice. I'm telling you because I would prefer to risk feeling the hatred radiate from you're eyes every time you see me (it would be no different than now) rather than not knowing what it's like to choose a different path. A different life. The life I was suppose to live. The life I long to live...
I hope you find this piece of my heart insightful. I didn't write this for your pity. I don't want pity. I didn't write it in a desperate attempt to make you love me. I know you will never love me. I came to terms with that long ago. I don't expect you to love me. What I want is understanding. I want you to know that I understand you. I want you to know about the life I was forced to take. I want you to know that no one truly knows me. But what I want most of all is to see something, anything, other than just the hatred in your eyes.