and i'll even have the courtesy
of admitting i was wrong
as the final words before i'm dead and gone
Draco hates admitting he's wrong. He hates the fall of pride, the way that his shields fall down: he is no longer the haughty, feared leader but the one fading away behind the scenes in the stage show he has cast and produced himself.
His carefully planned script crumples in the place he least expected it to, at home. Somewhere between intermission and the second act his façade falls, the Mud-Hermione is brought in, he is not a fearless warrior anymore.
Draco looses himself in her face, in the courage that she shows – he's always secretly admired, although he's never even admitted it to himself – and he lies. He does not know he, he says, and then he chastises himself for it all, for being wrong.
Later when she escapes, something he thought impossible, he realises that he was right: he does not know her, he only knows what he wishes her to be.
