OK...I was in a mood. So I wrote this. I only wrote it this afternoon, so it hasn't been beta-ed or anything. There also might be a few 'off' bits, because I wrote it in one go and read it through like, twice. Constructive criticism would be very much appreciated for this one, as I've never written anything like it. The only fanfics I have ever written are here, so ya...lots of constructive criticism would be good. If you are going to flame me, please don't bother telling me I'm evil or whatever. Yay, go bump up my reviews, make me look more popular than I actually am, but at least make it a good flame. Be original! Oh, and I need help with a ff website. See my profile for details. Thanky for reading...love to you all. xxx
Note: Slash implied. Quite morbid. Be careful ie. don't sue me. I warned you, and DISCLAIMER: whatever. None of the characters are mine, 'K? They're JKR's.
Dear mother,
You didn't know me at all. So here, for you only, is an insight into the life of your one and only son. The most painful areas of my life are here for you to read. I hope you're crying right now, and I hope you're in the most terrible pain that I can imagine.
But what we hope and want does not always happen. As I so horribly found out.
I remember once staring at Harry Potter from the back of a classroom, hating every moment of the presentation that he was giving. Every word Harry uttered cut through me like a knife, and all I could do was sit and wait. Wait for it to be over.
I hated that. The feeling of not feeling in control, the feeling of powerlessness, the feeling of loneliness.
People always surrounded me, and only when I retired to my own thoughts was I ever truly alone. And that was because nobody ever bothered to wonder what ran through my mind.
They were scared. Scared, because they could never understand. And because they were scared, they ignored me. If you ignore something, it will eventually go away. You taught me that. Nobody cared. Everybody tried their utmost hardest not to care, I eventually realised. Everybody knew something was wrong but they didn't want to care.
That would put too much responsibility on you, wouldn't it, mother? I would look pleadingly at you, and you would stare fixedly somewhere else. Anywhere else. It was almost all too much for you, Narcissa Malfoy, who didn't care about anything.
But that's slightly off the point. Do you know why I was hating Harry Potter and his top-of-the-year Quidditch theory presentation? Because I was evil? A Malfoy? Hating anyone and everyone lower than themselves, feeling only contempt if the will to feel ever distracted us from our glassy, apathetic, robotic lives?
Wasn't I the most perfect little boy a few years ago, mother? I did hate Potter, I did want to uphold our family's reputation. I always got good enough marks. But naïvety and innocence is easily broken out of. It just takes a few minutes of your life to help you escape from the prison of ignorant bliss.
I was fifteen years old. I had returned to school from a truly hideous summer. Remember the one where Pansy came to stay with us? That one.
You had already designed Pansy's fucking wedding dress...
"A perfect couple," you said. I always remember those words, because that was when I heard the most real emotion that I had ever heard in your voice.
I was feeling rebellious. Why should I have to marry Pansy? I thought she was pig-ugly, and a dumb bitch. She seemed to like me well enough, but then...
Then, everyone liked me. I was popular, mature, gorgeously irresistible Draco Malfoy. I must have been the object of many many peoples' fantasies. Sometimes, it scared me. Underneath, I was a solitary person, and hated the idea that girls might giggle and masturbate over me. No, don't look shocked, mother dear. Trust me, I know. I had enough letters from secret admirers, and some girls would even tell it to my face.
The legal age for consent in Britain is sixteen. Hardly anybody stuck to that. We were magical beings...teenage witches and wizards who could soar, liberated, into the sky on broomsticks. We didn't have to stick to Muggle rules. We just didn't care.
Voldemort was on the loose. Well, fuck Voldie! So what? I was a Slytherin, I was fine, and the others just relied on old Dumbledore. Cedric Diggory was killed, but he was always a prick anyway. He deserved it, and more than half of the school would have happily agreed with me.
But Harry. I'm not going off the subject again, contrary to what you may think. What could I have to say now that links my relatively premature sexual exploration phase, and Harry Potter?
You know, don't you, mum? But you don't want to believe it. Are you upset yet? Have you rushed into the special room where you keep the wedding dress to mourn and weep over it? You know, as I write this, I almost feel that I have a power over you. And it feels great.
So that was why I was in so much pain as I sat through something I would normally be uncharacteristically optimistic about. Because I was in love with Harry Potter.
It wasn't just lust. There was that element...we would be fired up after a Quidditch match or something, and it would be impossible to keep our hands off each other, to use such a cliche.
Shall I describe it for you, mother? Or will that put you through too much pain...?
Because I can remember perfectly the feeling of his lips on mine. The shape of his body...I had pressed against it and squirmed in his embrace so many times. The feeling of his bare skin against mine was best...even drenched in mud and sweat and rain, I still couldn't quite hold back the 'animal in me'.
But I still haven't said why I hated it.
Because I loved him? Bollocks. Or...partly bollocks.
I did love him. I loved him so much. I didn't even know why. He had never showed me any more attention than anybody else. He was just...Potter the slut. Had everyone.
And I was Draco the slut. Inevitable, really, that we would get together sometime. The two biggest tarts in the year...so what if we were boys?
I don't know whether he expected me to fall in love with him. He certainly didn't fall in love with me. Before the presentation, when I had wished him luck, in the most offhand way possible, he had looked at me as if I were mad. Then I realised. I was just another character from one of his numerous escapades. He didn't give a fuck about me.
What did I have after that? Nothing. The two things that had ever meant anything to me in my life were Potter, and Quidditch. And he had ruined them both with just one look.
From then on, most of what he caused me was pain.
Once, when my insomnia was particularly bad, I decided to go for a night-time stroll. Not just around the building, I wanted to be outside. I wanted to be free of the cords of depression that so mercilessly tied me down. So I took my broomstick out onto the Quidditch pitch and mounted it.
I flew higher and higher, higher than ever before. Suddenly I looked down, and wondered what it would be like to fall.
The wind blowing through my hair, and then, when I reached the ground, it would all be over. It sounded perfect.
The G-force would kill you before you hit the ground, drawled the bitch of a voice in the back of my head. I hated myself right then.
That was why I jumped.
When I woke up, I was lying down, and someone was stroking my forehead. Back and forth, back and forth. Their touch was feather-light, and I opened my mouth in surprise.
"Harry?" I croaked desperately.
He laughed. "Yeah. Well done."
I sat up eagerly, expecting to see his face looking down at me. All I saw was the underside of a black cat. It scampered off, mewing loudly.
"But it wasn't me stroking you...it was old McGonagall there." I looked around. Harry was sitting about five yards away, against a tree.
"That was Professor McGonagall?" I was crestfallen. "Shit."
Harry laughed again. "Only joking. That was just some scabby old cat come to beg food from me. I rescued you, you know," he added, picking at his fingernails.
It all came back. And I got up, and ran, back, as hard and fast as I could in that state, to my dormitory. All the way there, I could hear Harry chuckling softly in my ears.
So you see, mother, he tormented me. He didn't drive me to this though. I would have done it anyway. In a way, he provided the only happiness that I had in those days.
I loved remembering him. Remembering the times that he was nice. But the only way I could do that was by cutting myself.
The pain would make me think of him. The action would be my anger...I would slice cleanly at one of my wrists, and a terrible longing for his touch to make it better would come over me. Then I would express the anger I was feeling by cutting again, harder, and faster.
It wasn't just my wrists. I didn't particularly want to die then. But I would cut myself a lot. Anywhere and everywhere. Blood stained my bedsheets, but still, nobody said anything.
Then it was time to come home for summer.
You noticed. I remember looking in the huge mirror in the hallway, watching you as you watched me with that calculating look in your eyes.
I'm not sure, but I think you once tried to help me. You called me into your bedroom when father was away, and sat me down. But then someone called you.
Maybe you just wanted to know something completely insignificant. Or maybe you wanted to help me. But we never spoke of it again.
Mother, I should very much like to know whether you ever felt like helping me. But I never will. Not now. As you read this part of the letter, somebody - a maid, most probably- may scream from the distant part of our house that is my bedroom. Because she will have found me, lying on my bed drenched in my own blood, and as stiff and pale as marble. I will be dead by the time you read this, but still, here is my death wish.
I want you and father to know that, although you have been awful parents to me, I still love you. You brought me into the world in which I have experienced so much. So much happiness, but more sadness. And I want Harry Potter to know that he gave me both happiness and sadness. I did not do this to myself because of him. He kept me from doing it earlier. So please, thank him, and send him my eternal love.
Now, I am about to end this letter. But I haven't said anything to my father yet.
No doubt he will stride into my bedroom and order me to get up.
But for once, I will be able to disobey him. And even if it's
only because I can't, you will know that I will rest happily
because of that.
Forever
in my glasshouse of sixteen-year-old meditation,
Draco.
OK...
Um...that's it for today. I'm going to stop writing, because
that's basically all I've done this weekend and...I'm out of
inspiration. I did want to get a crucifix in there somewhere (I'm
obsessed with crosses and crucifixes), but...I dunno, I couldn't
think of anywhere to put it. It's just...cutting makes me think
of crosses, and when I'm in that kind of mood, I like to couple
them. So...yeah.
