Okay, so I'd finished this challenge A SUPER DUPER long time ago but I have literally been too lazy to upload it. That is really sad, but unfortunately true. As usual, I don't own HP. :(
***CRIMINAL MINDS READERS***, check out a story I co-wrote with pnkturtle55, The things we do!
I also co-wrote two other CM stories with her, Different kinds of pain and Different kinds of healing! Drop by and leave a review!
Draco looked at the stony walls around him. They glistened with moisture, and the smell of the room was murky and musty. Everything around him was dark and reminded him of the manor, somewhere he didn't especially want to go back to.
The place haunted him in his dreams, the nights filled with the soul-wrenching screams, the cries of muggle children and muggleborns. Draco's face was gaunt and his eyes were empty holes that held no more life.
He could only see the blood that pooled around his feet when he was forced to clean up the dead, apparently it was the only thing he could do. He could never shake the fear of immortal eyes watching him.
Red eyes, the color of blood. The most terrible color eyes could be.
Draco shivered in the stony room, though it was still much warmer than the cell he was being kept in at Azkaban. He hated that he was pulled to the Dark side because of the family he was born into.
He didn't hate muggleborns. He didn't despise muggles or blood-traitors, like his father.
He wished that he and his mother could run away, she wasn't a Death Eater yet she was being kept in Azkaban also. If there was one person he wanted out, it was her. She never did anything wrong. She'd only ever tried to protect him, Draco doubted an unforgivable had ever come out of his mother's wand unless he'd used it.
Draco's cold gray eyes looked around the Ministry cell, it was strange to be here. His trial was in a week.
He expected a life sentence to Azkaban as his punishment. People knew his family as the number one followers of Voldemort.
Draco Malfoy was not getting out of punishment. Just as he hadn't gotten out of punishment for being a coward, and not killing Dumbledore. He remembered clearly the pain that swallowed him, his mothers tears, he remembered the way her soft and nimble hands had tended carefully to his angry bruises and bloody lacerations.
She'd brushed his hair back the way she'd done when he was a small child and kissed his forehead. She told him his favorite story from childhood. It was one that he could never find in print, and after his first year of Hogwarts, decided that his mother probably made it up.
His lonely days at Hogwarts were spent longing for the story. The only consolation he could reach were his memories of his gentle mother cooing at him in the dark depths of the night.
Draco loved his mother more than anything on the Earth, he would give his life for her. He hoped that she would plead innocent and be let out to live the rest of her life in the peace of a Voldemort-free world.
The blonde tapped his fingers against his leg worriedly. Thinking about the Mighty Dragon and the way he conquered all bad in a world of war.
The story seemed to relate to him directly, maybe his mother had meant for it to be that way. Except Draco wasn't strong enough to overcome the Dark.
The door opened and a man walked in. Draco looked at him and quickly averted his eyes to the opposite wall, the floor, anywhere besides the man's face.
The man spoke his first few words and Draco heard nothing after them. He could only think about how much his life could change if this man could do the things he said he could do.
Draco could be free, he could pursue his dreams. Tears pushed their way to his dead gray eyes.
The man stared at him in a peculiar way before offering a comforting hand. Draco let the man's rough hand rest on his shaking shoulder.
His hand was warm, making Draco realize how cold the room was, how cold he was on the inside. Draco couldn't look the man's eyes, nor could he look him in the face.
If Draco accepted the offer, he would forever be in the man's debt. The man could make Draco into a nice little puppet. Deep down, Draco knew that the man wouldn't do such a thing.
Draco tried to hold back his tears. His Mum had always told him that he'd been strong too long, and Draco knew it. He'd never cried for his lonely childhood days, where he'd wander the gigantic manor alone. He'd look at the giant shiny walls and they reminded him of his insignificance.
The blonde never got to cry for the painful curses cast upon him, the friends he lost, for his own life, lost in the misjudgment of war.
Draco hated himself for his weakness in front of the other man. His face was probably flushed and wet with salty tears. They probably made his eyes sparkle with a false light. His expression most likely showed every ounce of physical and mental pain he'd ever experienced.
Draco let a strangled sob escape his chest, ripping open his heart so it could bleed all over the other man.
Draco only felt the hand on his shoulder, he only listened to deep hush that passed the man's lips. He only tasted the dryness of his chapped lips.
The man didn't jeer or tease as he might've done years before, and Draco was thankful for that. The tears of anguish soon turned to tears of thanks as he turned his face up to look at the man's soft face before him.
The other man's expression was soft, his eyes were shimmering with heavy tears for him. Draco didn't want people to cry for him, he didn't want their pity.
But the man's eyes did not hold pity, Draco decided, they held understanding. Draco wondered if it was only the loss he understood, maybe he understood the pain, the tears and the need for comfort. Maybe he understood the unbearable weight of expectations, the redundant and painful mask you are forced to wear in order to maintain a reputation.
The man understood Draco, and that helped Draco feel less alone. Even if he ended up in Azkaban for the rest of his life.
The man's green eyes were astonishing even behind the crooked black frames. The messy haired man eyed Draco.
"Well?" The man's voice was the same as it was before, the voice of Harry Potter. The boy he'd hated. Draco nodded affirmatively and Harry held out a friendly hand, complete with a sad, yet true smile.
Yes, Draco thought as Harry left, he would let Harry defend him and his Mum before the Wizengamot. Against everything Draco had learned, he would accept help and maybe live a full life. Though this time he'd live in the light.
CM READERS LOOK AT THE TOP NOTE PLS! You won't be disappointed.
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