.Safe.
His sneers, his slanted eyes, his barbed tongue. They're safety; a costume to dawn.
His father expected it of him, that mask of cruelness. When his mask cracked, so did his father's. Unlike Draco's mask, Lucius's mask didn't hide kindness – a frail and gentle heart. It hid hatred – a balled fist and an anger akin to hellish flames. Safety came with the mask.
Draco had worn that mask for years; so long, that it had become his face. But then he smiled, black hair sticking out in all directions, and Draco felt the crack of his safety, of his mask.
.Sound.
Draco loved that sound.
It was hard to describe, that sound. It was so beautiful that words, he felt, would do it an injustice. Still, he felt obligated to try.
In simple terms it was a groan. It was a throaty groan the reverberated in his soul. It was hearty, intoxicating. It was such a thing that made his knees weak and his toes curl. It set his blood a fire when Harry let in slip past his lips, and sent him through a tumultuous whirlwind of pleasure, happiness, and euphoria. It was a gift from god, simple as that.
.Dark.
Every step forward felt like one step into darkness.
It started with arrogance. It was childish. Truly, it was the words of a child who'd been raised to believe that he was simply better for some arbitrary, uncontrollable reason.
Then it hit a milestone: a word. Mudblood. It was no longer arrogance, it was hatred.
And then it… Then it truly became darkness. It was the day he bowed to the lord, and let the ink set into his forearm. Then was a line crossed into irrevocable darkness.
It was a darkness hard to escape, perhaps impossible to completely escape.
.Light.
There was darkness.
It was a suffocating darkness that gripped him with iron fists and tugged on his everything – his soul, his heart, his head, his hair, his arrogance, him. It was a darkness that threatened to overwhelm him; to break him and shatter him.
"Lumos."
And then there was light. A good light that made him smile, heady on the sudden clarity with which he could see what hid in the darkness.
And he had him to thank. Once an enemy, now a savior. Was this irony? He didn't know, he just smiled and thank his savior: Harry Potter.