Draco, w00t.
lined up is Rose Weasley and Fred Weasley I.

Draco Malfoy

1) When he was little, he was deathly afraid of the dark. Because the dark was so scary! He heard things in the dark he didn't hear in the light, heard creaks and moans that were all just the old house, but to little Draco they were monsters, waiting for the precise moment before coming out and eating him. The dark was filled with scary unknowns, and Draco never really felt safe until first light.

When he was older, he was deathly afraid of the dark. Because at least in the light, he could pretend. He could pretend that he wasn't afraid of the war, he could pretend that he knew what he was doing, he could pretend that he was the Dark Lord's favourite. But in the dark he couldn't pretend. In the dark he was faced with his fear that he would die, that he would be killed, that he would fail and be murdered. In the dark there were monsters, and not monsters from his childhood, no ghouls, goblins or trolls- the monsters were his own personal demons, and Draco didn't know how to escape those.

2) It had actually hurt a little when Harry Potter refused to be friends with him. Not just because Draco had been used to getting everything he wanted, to having people lined up because of who he was and for his last name, but because Harry Potter was the first person to make him feel insignificant. He continued to make him feel insignificant throughout his time at Hogwarts. Draco wasn't used to being anything less then the centre of attention, so where did Potter get off, always acting the hero? But suddenly, there he was, rescuing the stone, saving the mudbloods who were better off petrified, anyway, becoming a bloody champion and babbling stories about the Dark Lord that Draco knew were true.

And where did Potter get off, saving his life like that? Because nothing was worse then feeling like you were in debt to the one person you hated with more passion then most people could muster in all their lives. Who did Potter think he was?

But what Draco hated most was that whoever Potter thought he was, Draco wanted to be it. If not it, the equivalent to it.

3) When Voldemort told him his task, that he was to kill Dumbledore, he didn't really think much about it. Yes, it was a big deal, and Draco would have to become a murderer. And maybe he wasn't happy about it, but he could do it. He had never really liked Dumbledore anyway. He was... odd, crazy, a Gryffindor and mudblood lover, and anyone who thought that highly of Harry Potter was clearly off his crocker.

But then, suddenly, Draco was there. He had Dumbledore vulnerable, and there was nothing the old man could do but plead. But staring into Dumbledore's bright blue eyes, all he could see was the man who had never judged him. The man who he learned under for six years. The man who had done nothing but fight for what he believed in, and really, wasn't that what they all were doing? Fighting for what they believed in? Since when did you deserve to be punished for believing? Draco didn't like Dumbledore, but he couldn't kill him. He just couldn't.

4) Then Dumbledore promised him the only thing Draco really wanted in the middle of the chaos- safety. And Draco sighed, because finally he would be safe, him and his mother. His father wouldn't go along, but that was okay. Dumbledore would protect them. Draco didn't care about the war anymore- he didn't care about darkness or light. He just wanted to know he would live to see tomorrow, and Dumbledore would help that. Dumbledore could give him that.

Then he heard the Death Eaters from downstairs, and there was no more hope after that.

5) For a while, he hated his father. For a lot of things- for putting his family in danger, for putting his mother in danger, for sacrificing everything to serve a man too drunk on power to think straight, but most of all for the mark still imprinted on his arm, the mark he couldn't get off no matter how hard he tried, the mark that made it almost impossible to start anew. Draco hated the mark on his arm more then anything else, because the mark made it impossible to hide from what he had been.

But he found it impossible to hate his father. He couldn't turn his back on the man who raised him. But still, when Draco would lie in bed at night and let his thoughts wander to the mark on his arm, he knew he could never actually completely forgive his father for giving his only son to the Dark Lord.

6) Even though the war should have taught him differently, he believed that pure blood was better blood. He had grown up believing that- that was all he had been taught. So even though mudbloods and muggles were much more accepted after the war, Draco still stuck with his pure blood group of friends.

He kept on believing this until he met Astoria. Not because she taught him differently- she had been brought up believing the same things he had. No, he stopped believing (at least, not as much as he had used to) because he knew that even if Astoria had been a mudblood, hell, even if Astoria had been a muggle, he would have still loved her. Because there was no way he could live without Astoria- no matter what blood she had.

7) He was absolutely terrified when he found out he was going to become a father. Because he was afraid that he didn't know how to be a good father. The only father he really knew was his, and looking at the mark on his arm he knew he didn't want to raise his own child like his dad had raised him. He wanted to raise his kid knowing who they were, and yet at the same time, he didn't want them to make the same mistakes Draco had made. He wanted his child to know that they were pureblooded, and be proud of that, but he didn't want them to be plagued with thoughts that they was better then everyone else, because Draco knew that thinking like that would only get you into trouble.

But it was more then that. It was the fear that his child would find out what Draco had done, and they would hate him for it.

But holding Scorpius in his arms, all those fears vanished. This was his son, and he was going to raise him right.

8) Despite the fact Draco had left most of his childhood grudges behind him, he couldn't help but be a little upset when Scorpius told him about Rose Weasley. Because how was it, that of all the girls out there Scorpius could have fallen for, it had to be Rose Weasley? Was it fate getting back at him, karma for all those times he mocked Weasley and Granger?

But Rose was a really nice girl, and she made Scorpius happy. And besides, it could have been worse.

It could have been Lily Potter.

9) He is constantly faced with memories from the battle, continually haunted by what had happened, by what he had done. He would hear the screams of people he had tortured, the fire going out of someone's eyes as he stared at them, would hear the sobbing of broken families. He would see Voldemort's cold eyes as he told him to kill Albus Dumbledore, would see his mothers furious face and his fathers cold eyes, would feel the burn on his skin from the Dark Mark. He would see Crabbe's wild eyes just before he died, would see Harry Potter, would see the Dark Lord fall.

For years he faced the nightmares alone, curling up in his bed and trying to decide what was worse, the unconscious demons or the conscious ones. But now when he wakes sweating, panicked, Astoria is there to chase the monsters away.

10) He's made mistakes, and a lot of them. He knows that- he accepts that. He understands why, even now, people judge him for his name, for what he had done when he was younger. He accepts that some people hate him.

But he's trying to change. He's trying to become a better person, for his wife, for his son, for his family. And isn't the fact that he's trying good enough?