I was naive to have clung so tightly to the names and titles that I thought defined everything around me. Pureblood, mudblood, traitor, master, murderer, Death Eater, madman, good, evil… What did any of it mean in the end? They were just words. No face, no soul, no heart. Not even twisted reason. They were just fucking words that people foolishly died for. Who we are—Haha! My name is Draco Malfoy, and I was a prodigy, manufactured by carefully cast conception spells and several generations of near-inbreeding between the purest magical lines in all of Europe. I am a man, because my mother was bound by her marriage contract to produce a Black-Malfoy heir, and so ensured, with wand and potion, that she held up her end of the bargain at the very first attempt. Before I was barely even a bundle of cells, growing deftly within her womb, she had guaranteed both my gender and my role in the traditional clusterfuck that was our lives. I am a wizard because I would have been drowned or, if my father was feeling particularly cruel that day, abandoned in a Muggle settlement and forgotten, should the test for magical energy – an ancient but fairly simple spell performed as soon as a child is born from two pure-blood parents – prove me a useless squib. I would have been pawned off to our long estranged and never-mentioned Muggle relatives, much like Saint Potter was, another shameful secret obliviated from the memories of all involved, including the witch and wizard who dared bear a non-magical abomination. Sometimes, I obsess about those possibilities. What if I had been born without an ounce of magic in my oh-so-pure veins? I clutch two specific scenarios, refusing all others: I would have been found eventually, cared for, loved. That, or I would have died in the ice-ridden Highlands, frozen solid, untouched. The Dark Lord would have been a vague idea, lodged somewhere in my subconscious, real only in my nightmares. Hogwarts would not exist. There would be no blaring mark on my forearm, no Lucius Malfoy, no Azkaban, no Hermione Granger. There would only be me and my happy, innocent existence. But even as I lose myself in the idea, I find that piece of dense flesh – heavy and demanding – clenching under my sternum, aching at the thought of a world without her. The absence feels severe, a sharp emptiness that makes me shake my head until the fantasy-turned-nightmare slithers from my mind, momentarily forgotten.
Sixth Year
He saw her for the first time that year. Not the same girl he had been taunting since they were children but a woman whose fierce brown eyes spoke of the rewards of loyalty, the demands of true purity, the price of intelligence. She had grown – superimposed, even – into more than crazy hair, and dirty blood, and delicate pink flesh. Godfuck she drove him to distraction without even a single conscious effort.
Their initial encounter was brief. He had been pushed into yet another frenzy by the mere sight of the dark mark on his flesh and, fighting the urge to scream – or worse, fall into hysterics – he found himself walking out of his own chamber, long strides carrying him to a yet unnamed location. Anywhere, please, please, he could hear his own desperation screaming in his ears, and it wasn't until he passed Sir Cardogan that he realized his aimless escape had led him to the North Tower. The idea of an encounter with Sybil Trelawney had him running towards the only other room he felt safe enough to hide in until he could regain at least a small semblance of composure.
He almost fell into the Room of Runes, his weight swinging the door wide open, right hand wrapped desperately around the handle. His legs had been protesting, shaking as the inexplicable panic gripped his spine and spread far, far into his fingers, his lips, his lungs. His stomach was spasming and it took him a moment to realize that the room's sole occupant, a girl – the girl, in fact – had been standing by the west wall's large, open window. Her brown hair rode the whispering wind in dramatic rivulets around her face, defying the plain, black ribbon she had used to tie the mess of soft strands at the base of her head. They stared at one another for long seconds, a moment long enough for him to note later that tears streaked her cheeks and she looked…Well, he didn't quite know how to interpret her expression. She seemed almost afraid of him. Of course, that couldn't have been correct. Afterall, when had Hermione Granger ever shown fear?
She gasped, as if she had just woken from a trance. Then, without looking at him again, she swept from the room, leaving nothing but the scent of night-blooming jasmine in her wake. He couldn't understand then why, after taking his first deep breath in what felt like hours, he suddenly found the peace he didn't realize he had been begging for.