AN: Hi everyone! This is my first ever fanfic so any comments or criticisms would be greatly appreciated (on the other hand please keep in mind that I'm new to this.) Before I get started I'd just like to thank LadyLilyMalfoy for her advice and encouragement; without her and her inspiring fanfics I don't think I'd have decided to finally post something….so go check out her fanfics (I particularly recommend 'The Other Side of War').
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, it belongs to J.K Rowling no matter how much I wish it was mine.
WARNING: This fic will contain descriptions of child abuse, Anorexia and other behaviour associated with disordered eating…. please do not read if you think it will trigger or upset you!
Enjoy the fanfic….
It started as a punishment; in fact, when Draco thought about it the voice in his head was not at all the first to explain that food had to be deserved. He shuddered a little thinking of that word, how many times had it been used to justify pain... he wasn't sure, but that wasn't unusual, these days there was very little he was sure of.
The first time he went hungry was not a particularly painful memory, at least it wasn't compared to others; it never appeared in his nightmares nor as uncontrollable flashbacks. Nevertheless, he remembered it vividly: he'd been around 5 – too young for the cane or curses but far too old for his mother's lacklustre protection.
"What is this Draco?"
"It's us Father: you and mother and me, I drew it this morning!"
"And this Draco?" Lucius had said as he'd stabbed a small green section of the drawing.
"That's Cinders" Draco had said innocently, at 5 he hadn't yet understood that there was nothing to be done; that father wouldn't respond to begging, apologies or fighting and that threats were never empty. He did however know that getting upset seemed to enrage Father even more so he tried his best to suppress the tears that threatened to betray him.
"I see." Father had hissed "I haven't met Cinders yet; could you introduce him to me?"
"Yes, Sir" the boy has said before scurrying off to fetch his dragon plushie.
When Draco returned he proudly presented the toy to his Father who took it with a subtle look of disgust.
Draco didn't quite remember what happened next only that the next morning he'd woken up with a damp pillow, an empty stomach, bruises and words like "Useless! Malfoy's don't play with such pathetic toys" and "you're to stay in here till I say so…. If I hear that you've asked the elves for food, I'll be much less lenient with the next correction." Ringing in his head.
He hadn't had to wait long that time, his father had sent a house elf up with dinner the same day.
Then it became a strategy: if he could just stay in his room for long enough, stay out of sight long enough, then perhaps they'd forget about him. Forget his uselessness. Forget how pathetic he was. Just forget that he even existed.
Sometimes it actually worked and he'd be able to go weeks without catching his father's attention just by disappearing into his wing of the manor during the day and only sneaking down to the kitchens for food once it was dark and he was sure no one but the house elves were awake.
This strategy had been developed over the summer holidays between third and fourth year. Draco hated the summer; while other children looked forward to the endless months with no school, homework or demanding teachers – months full of fun with friends and family where the home-sickness felt at school could be cured and forgotten till September rolled around, Draco spent the months leading up to the holidays trying to smother the growing feelings of dread and doing everything he could to ignore his father's letters, full of coded threats in the form of reminders about exactly what made a Malfoy a Malfoy. And then there were summer exams, weeks of going to bed early in the morning and waking up not much later in a panic as nightmares of his father's face when he was beaten by the mudblood yet again ran through his head. The last day of term was something of a relief by the time it came around at least then the agonising wait was over, at least at home he knew what to expect even if all that meant was bruises, cold fury and emptiness.
His strategy had worked well that summer, Draco didn't care much that he ached with hunger during the day or that he'd lost an easily visible amount of weight as long as it meant one less 'correction' from his father. It also made the times when he couldn't escape easier to bear – the kind blackness which enveloped him during particularly savage punishments came quicker if he was already weak from hunger, although that sometimes meant more conversations with his father later:
"what are you Draco?" Lucius would snarl as he stood over the child, Lucius' face dangerously close to his son's.
Draco would look at his father with broken eyes, desperately trying to deduce the correct answer, sometimes this made Lucius angrier and the question would be forgotten as he raged about concealing one's feelings. Most times, however, he would be able to deduce correctly:
"pathetic, Sir" the child would whisper.
"Exactly" his father would say "you're nothing but a pathetic, useless little brat. A complete disgrace to the Malfoy name. You're worthless. What are you?"
"Worthless, Sir" Draco would whimper. If he was lucky the conversation would end there.
The penultimate day of the summer holidays before fourth year he was not quite so lucky.
His father and mother were downstairs midway through a "very important" dinner party; Draco had been given clear instructions to stay in his chambers, these of course had been accompanied by the usual warning: "you are not to leave these rooms, do you hear me? Do you? If I so much as hear a sneeze from you there will be consequences."
Draco really had tried to stay away, but he was just so hungry and even from his rooms on the far side of the manor he thought he could smell the food being served to the adults. This was ignored at first, but then it all became too much: the room was beginning to sway a little and the food causing treacherous aroma was all that he could think about. So, it was with that food in mind that he slipped out of his bedroom, through maze of corridors that ensured he stayed exiled - out of his parent's way, and finally through to the main staircase. The staircase was unnecessarily grand: dark mahogany banisters framed gleaming jade stairs which glided upwards to meet an impressive landing.
In hindsight Draco would regret going through that landing, he would regret ever taking a step out of his room at all. The landing contained many portraits of former Malfoys which would glare down at and intimidate any guest to the manor. It would end up being these paintings that gave Draco away that evening. As he passed it the portrait of his grandfather, the fearsome Abraxus Malfoy, started to talk, "shouldn't be out of his room… no respect…. Lucius is incompetent… disgraceful behaviour for a Malfoy." Draco paled as he heard the portrait begin to talk, "please" he whispered but his grandfather just continued his rant in the same booming voice.
Downstairs in the dining room Lucius could hear, albeit rather faintly, the paintings, "damn those portraits" he thought, his father's one was a particular menace – always complaining about the decline of the Malfoys and blaming him for the uselessness of his heir. Still he excused himself from the party and, expecting to simply find the paintings in an argument with each other he went to silence them. Instead he found a terrified Draco desperately trying to quiet them.
He ascended the stairs silently until he was right behind Draco, then looming over the child he said quietly, "Draco, fancy seeing you here… I thought I told you to stay in your room, or am I misremembering?"
Draco flinched and immediately turned to face his father. He was just in time to meet the backhand across his face that threatened to knock him to the floor. He slowly put a trembling hand to is face and winced when they came back stained with slippery crimson.
"Go to your room. And this time stay there. I will deal with you later."
Draco nodded and as quickly as he could, without breaking into a run, walked to his room. Once there he collapsed on his bed, his mind racing. "stupid, so, so stupid…. You knew he'd be angry; you knew you'd get caught…. you're just so stupid!"
The waiting was almost as bad as the punishment itself, he never knew how long till the pain would arrive but once it did he always wished it could have waited a little longer. And then there was the hope, the hope that this time it would be different, that this time his father would just tell him off in a mildly disappointed voice and walk away or the hope that this would be the last time, that next times he'd be better, he'd be a "Proper Malfoy" rather than a "useless disgrace".
He sat in his room for hours, waiting. Hoping. Then there were footsteps, he flinched slightly and realised he was shaking but still got to his feet and faced the door in an attempt to avoid giving Lucius any more reasons to hurt him.
The footsteps stopped eventually and, slowly, the heavy door opened to reveal Draco's father, cane in hand.
"Turn around Draco"
The terrified boy obeyed slowly, focusing on the floor before remembering that he was supposed to face forwards during punishments and raising his eyes to glare intensely at the wall. He tried to focus on one area of it as the cane was brought down on his back over and over again… tried to focus on breathing rather than the cruel words being spat at him.
Eventually everything stopped and with a few farewell slaps and a shove to the ground Draco was left sprawled on the floor fighting the black spots that poked at the corner of his vision.
The next morning Draco was woken up by a timid house elf, "Master Draco," it croaked "Master Lucius sent me to make sures you were ready to leave for the station in two hours."
"Where's my wand?" Draco asked.
"Master Lucius had tolds Blinky that you will get it back ats the station." Blinky, the elf, said nervously. Draco sighed and, when the elf had left, summoned all his energy and made a slow painful attempt to stand up. He succeeded on the third try and once up struggled to the bathroom.
He winced as he lifted his shirt and saw the purples, blues, blacks that adorned his back and arms as well as the cut lip and vibrant, violet bruised eye.
"You deserved it" snarled something in his head, "Now, how're you going to hide that with no wand? You'd better think of something quick... we wouldn't want anyone knowing how weak you really are, would we?"
Draco sighed quietly, grabbed a potion to relieve some of the pain from the bathroom cupboard and limped into the shower.
Two hours passed with difficulty as Draco struggled to get ready, with every second that passed he became more and more conscious of his lack of any believable excuse for the state he was in; eventually he decided to focus on getting ready on time "show him you're not completely useless" and hoped he'd be able to think of something on the way to the station.
Once Draco was ready he began to struggle downstairs, leaving a house elf to take the trunk to the car. When he finally got downstairs he was met by his father's cold eyes and his mother's quiet anger. Her eyes met his and for a second he allowed himself to hope that he saw any semblance of caring in them, but then it was gone, replaced by resentment and regret. She turned to Lucius and after a curt nod from him raised her wand to Draco's face and cast a mixture of glamour and healing charms over it. Draco flinched, he didn't mean to, he just couldn't control them sometimes and being around his parents made it especially difficult. He pretended not to see Lucius hand curl around the cane with a clear desire to punish Draco for his "pathetically weak" reaction; instead Draco tried to focus on the relief of not having to think of a credible excuse – there were only so many times "I fell out of bed, I fell down the stairs, I got in a fight with a muggle" would fly.
When Lucius had decided that everything was as it should be the three of them made their way to the beautiful black car; Draco didn't really know why they even owned a car, it was only used for going to and from the station and it wasn't like either of his parents could actually drive, instead the car ran on a mix of magic and some strange liquid that he'd heard was called 'petrol'.
They got into the car and Draco felt himself relax a little; he allowed himself to drift into his thoughts and away from his father's "Malfoy's…." lecture and his mother's obvious impatience to get rid of him… at least until next year. They'd arrive soon and then he'd have to comply with his father's 'Happy Families' charade but until then he was free to sit in silence and ponder why an empty stomach suddenly felt so good.
AN: Thanks for reading…. I'd love to hear any comments/criticisms/ideas that you have. Was it the right length? Were there too many memories/flashbacks?
Poor Draco, reading this back it occurred to me that I have created an utterly hellish world for him, oh well :) I haven't decided yet if he's heading for a happy or sad ending so I guess I'll just let him lead me to whatever ending he wants.
Hopefully I'll have chapter 2 up within the next 2 weeks depending on how mean my teachers decide to be.
See you next time when we'll be journeying to Hogwarts with our favourite Slytherin prince…. Bye!