Title: Walking A Thin Line

Author: Jules (Julietz Star Gazer is ff.net pen name)

Archive: whoever, just ask please

Summary: Through love and hate, darkness and light, sanity and insanity, happy and sad, real and fake, there is always a very thin line.

Pairing: Draco/Harry

Author Notes: I love feedback, yes I do! Please?? TheMagicSortingHat@yahoo.com

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters. Tres sad. Just the plot.

"There's no doubt that life is a mystery,

but so to is the human heart."

~"John Doe #24" Mary Chapin Carpenter

Prologue:

Condemned



I was so cold. I close my eyes and all I can feel is cold. It feels as if I have been walking this hallway forever, my feet can barely drag along the wooden floor. They are holding onto me but they are not a support. They are a vacuum sucking my life force. They only hold onto me for they are afraid I might escape. The thought, to me, is laughable. If only they knew.

Through my squinted eyes, I can see the door up ahead. I know what lies behind that door, my fate, my destiny. All those people, those angry people. They all hate me, and as I hate myself, I cannot find probable cause to blame them.

As we reach the door, all thoughts I might have had vanished. The dementor on my left reaches out a slimy hand and turns the doorknob with a squeak. Im staring at it, willing it not to turn, but of course it does. The oak slab swings forward on its hinges, and I step into hell.

I can feel the hatred pulsating through this room the moment I step in it. I cannot even look up, but I can hear the pulses quicken as people are being held back from leaping on me and slitting my throat then and there. I am led blindly to a chair in the middle of the room and forced into it. My head is hanging and I cannot look up from my shackled hands in my lap. I can hear the footsteps approach and I swallow hard. I've never been one to be scared. But I am now.

'We are here today,' the voice begins with a unusually hard Irish accent, 'to determine the fate of the accused. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, public at home, you will hear of heinous, almost unspeakable crimes, which this man,' I flinch as he refers to me, 'has been accused of. I ask you to seek justice. To the fullest extent.'

It starts. My body is racked with small tremors of fear and raw deadness of heart. It is then that I look up. They are all here as I knew they would be. Sirius, looking as though a man who had nothing left to live for. Im sure I look the same way. Ron, gripping Hermoine's hand, looked as though he were in a slow and horrible nightmare. Hermoine just looked, hollow. With no emotion. I looked at each one of them and they looked back at me.

Then there was Seamus, the auror, the prosecuting lawyer. He raised a steady gaze to mine, and although he was trying to look strong his finger shook as it pointed to me.

'Draco Malfoy,' he started hoarsely, 'you have been accused of the torture, crucifixion and murder of Harry Potter. How do you plead?' he hissed at me. The whole room became so silent you could have heard a pin drop.

'Guilty.'