The Things That Keep Him Awake at Night 1/?
By: LadyDraco917
Warnings: Oddity, H/D slash, slight insanity, angst, references to physical abuse, slight language, confusion and of course...tormented Draco.
Disclaimer: Do you really think J.K. Rowling would be wasting her time on this? I think not. So, therefore, the characters are not mine. Don't sue; you won't get much. That and if slash bothers you...looks blatantly at the back button
A/N: Written from Draco's point of view, this story is about the things that keep him awake at night. Or should I say the person? It's rather an odd piece, but what can I say? I like it. And now, Smoke Break Productions is less than proud to present, "The Things That Keep Him Awake at Night."
Part the First:
In the Midnight Hours, He Dreams
Tick. Tock.
Tick. Tock
Twelve o'clock and all's just smashing.
That is, if you consider smashing to be a word that describes utter misery. This is the third week in a row. I'm not asleep before midnight, and, of course, it's all his fault. It's always been his fault. Like it's his fault I've been doing so poorly in school lately. Like it's his fault he's so distracting. Like it's his fault I don't have any real, loyal friends like he does. Like it's his fault for being so famous and so automatically loved. Like it's his fault I'm jealous of that fame...that recognition. Like it's his fault that my father is furious with me. Like it's his fault that my father has done such unspeakable things to me. Like it's his fault that I always have to do my best. Like it's his fault that my best is never good enough. Like it's his fault for beating me in studies and Quidditch and everything else, humiliating me in front of everyone time and time again. Like it's his fault that I can't stop thinking about him. Like it's his fault that every single move he makes is seductive. The way he pushes his glasses up not because they are sliding down his nose but out of habit. The way he brushes those unruly black locks back from his face. The way he fidgets with his quill in potions class. And it's all his fault that I can't take my eyes off him. It's all his fault. Everything is his fault. It's his fault that I...no. Not tonight, Draco baby. We're not going to think about that tonight.
Ah, I always say that though. Not tonight, Draco baby, you're not going to think about him tonight. Funny though, how everything always seems to lead back to him. Ah, but tonight will be different. Tonight I will not think of him. What then? Outside, out of my high set window, so rare in the Slytherin dungeons to have a room with a window. Thank you dad, this is about the only decent thing you've done for me. My own room with a window so I can look outside and into the night. The night. Dark. Black. Just like his hair. Black silk that shines with an iridescent light all its own. Black hair that goes beautifully with the slightly tanned skin, casting a spell but one entirely different for the ones we study. I wonder if that hair is as soft as it looks, all gentle curls and disheveled loveliness. Sometimes I wish I could just reach out and touch it, just let my finger run through his hair. Twisting and winding those silken strands. Moving from his hair to his neck, his face. Caressing the skin of his cheek, feeling the gentle curve of his perfect cheek bones, so unlike my own, all sharp angles and pointed features. Come to think of it, I haven't ever touched him. Someone or something has always interfered before we ever came to blows. Oh, how I want to though. The impulse is so strong. It would be so easy to just reach out and touch him. To touch his skin, his hair, his...his lips. To reach out and touch those rose lips that always seem to be chapped ever so slightly. Just enough to invoke a slight flick of his tongue, running over them just enough to make them glisten wetly. Just enough to be considered seductive, erotic almost in its nature. And he is so unaware of the fact that he's tempting, so blissfully unaware that his simplest actions make me burn with desire. Sometimes, I think I would give anything just for the briefest contact. To feel my lips pressed against his. To feel his hand entangled in my hair or his hand around my waist as we explored each other's mouths, bodies...
Ah, but this sounds so purely physical, like all I feel for him is lust. Ha, if only that were all. I've been fighting with myself for weeks over this. Years perhaps. What is Harry to me? What do I feel for him, if anything at all? Ah, and here I am calling him Harry. It's become habit to call him by last name in public, but when did I start using his first name in my thoughts? Perhaps I was not aware just how much he invades my every thought. But I let him. I let his image invade my mind and ensnare my senses and take over my sleepless nights. Sleepless because of him. Sleepless because ever since the first day we met in Diagon Alley I thought he was beautiful. Even after I found out he was the Great Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, in all capital letters, that did not change the fact that he was beautiful. And ever since that first day, I knew we had a connection. Somehow, we share this deep connection even though our histories are different, true, but also so very similar. Linked by acts of violence and cruelty, two twin souls lost in the darkness, not knowing there was anything else outside of this life of torment. Sometimes I want to tell him everything, I want to tell him how beautiful I think he is and I want to tell him of my pain. Of a father who bruised and battered and scarred, and my mother that did nothing to stop it and nothing to heal. Of a future destined to nothing but one of degrading servitude that would eventually end in a horrible death. I want him to understand...to be a confidant, a...a friend. Perhaps more. NO! I said I wasn't going to do this. Father would be simply furious with me if he knew I was thinking this way again, and he made it quite clear to me last time what the consequences would be. It still stuns me that he knows. That he can invade my thoughts, the very sanctum of my mind, the only place left that I thought I was safe, that I thought I could escape from him. That he invaded my mind, robbed me of what little part of myself I still had, and left me, bleeding and broken, left me to pick up the pieces of my shattered self. I'm really not sure what his opinions on homosexuality are but I do know his opinions all too well about him. I shouldn't even be considering him in this way. The possibility is unthinkable, unimaginable. We're supposed to be enemies, foes, in constant competition with each other. And you are not supposed to feel this way about your archenemy.
But, and there is always a but, here I am, unable to sleep for the who knows how many-ith night in a row. All because I'm thinking about him and can't stop myself, don't want to stop myself. Can't stop thinking about his eyes (seductive emeralds that transpire earthly bounds in their radiance), his always slightly tussled hair that is almost endearing, his perfect skin much darker than my own creamy white complexion, his slim yet muscular body sculpted by years of flying, the body of a Seeker. Fuck. Fuck...fuck!
It never could have been someone else either. Just him. It's always been him. Ever since my first year at Hogwarts, I realize that now. Even since that first year, I haven't been able to think of anyone else. Although, I always wrote it off to studying the enemy. Watching him constantly until I knew every little nervous habit, every tone of his voice, every laugh, every smile, every movement. Thinking that if I watched long enough I could understand how he always managed to come out on top. In that first year, if I wasn't better than he was I wasn't happy. Going out of my way whenever possible to insult him or his friends, to belittle all the Gryffindor values he holds so dear, to be better than him, to do and be everything that he wanted, to crush that damned ego of his. And believe me, he does have an ego. Swaggering around like he owns all of Hogwarts. That damned hint of authority that shines through into his voice, especially when we exchange insults, like he's better than everyone. Better than me. And his eyes, his eyes are the worst. Looking at me like I'm something vile, something not to be trusted, and something he never wants to become, despite the fact that we're alike in so many ways.
But somewhere along the line all my hate for him (if it was really hate to begin with), drilled into me by none other than my bastard of a father, turned into a great animosity between us. Then, the animosity turned into obsession, although some may argue that it started out as such or at least it started out as obsession on my part. And then my obsession, for I don't believe he thinks about me as much as I do him, turned into a yearning so deep, so strong that it threatens to consume me in its fire. And this is where the problem lies. You see, I can't want him. But, I do want to want him. I do want him, want him to want me as much as I want him, but he doesn't want me and I'm not supposed to want him. Do you understand? Good, because I sure don't. It's becoming increasingly harder to hold myself in check when I'm around him. Not to stare at his perfect face. To keep up my front of cold stares and icy insults. The strain is just becoming too much, and I fear that one day, which I feel may be very soon, I won't be able to restrain myself anymore. I'll see him walking down a hallway and I'll pounce him and ravish him right then and there in the middle of the corridor, not caring who sees. My, what a spectacle that would be. Not very dignified Draco.
I've really been trying to think this through in a rational way. In a way I can understand because emotions are so foreign to me. I've been trying to detach my mind so this can be studied and analyzed. Trying to come to some sort of logical conclusion as to why I'm having these strange feelings, because they certainly cannot be my own. However, if they are not the result of a curse, or a charm, or a hex, or a potion of some sort then they must be my own. But that's impossible. Right? I'm reminded now of a quote from Sherlock Holmes, "Once you have eliminated all possible options, whatever you are left with, no matter how impossible it may seem, is the answer." Or something to that effect. But if that is the case then these feelings really are my own, but how can that be? Round and round in circles we go. I never was much for merry-go-rounds.
Sometimes I wonder if I would be going through all this if he had taken my hand in friendship all those years ago on the Hogwarts Express. Never mind that I had insulted him in the process. I remember it completely, it's one of those events that is forever burned into my memory. It has come to be one of those events that has changed my life forever. It came as such a shock to me back then. No one had ever refused my friendship, the friendship of a Malfoy, before him. People didn't dare refuse me anything either out of fear or respect, but the name Malfoy has lost some of it's worth since then. At least it has to me. The name Malfoy is something dirty to me now, a name that I despise. A name that haunts me, that kills me from the inside. That name has taken my soul and left an empty shell of a person, but back then I was still proud to be called a Malfoy. I would even go so far as to say that, in those childhood years, I was quite spoiled, not yet aware of what being born into that family meant. Not now, though, I've grown up. Some might even say I've grown up too much. But I really didn't have a choice. He forced me to. He forced me to realize that I couldn't have everything I wanted, that I wasn't the best, that I'm not perfect and never will be. My father makes that fact known to me everyday when we're both at home. He is always reminding me that I am not good enough, that I am a disgrace to the name Malfoy, that I am not perfect, that I bring punishment on myself, that it hurts him more than it hurts me but if I would just do what I was told none of this would be happening. I hate him for that, my father that is. But I hate Potter too. I hate him for refusing me. He was the first person to ever deny me, and to date he has been the last, at least here at school. He is the only person I cannot have, the only person who has refused my friendship. The only one to refuse...me.
And now, he unknowingly is refusing me again. He is refusing to acknowledge my love, my passion. Never mind that he is blissfully unaware because I keep my shields up so well, because Harry is just oblivious to that sort of thing anyway, because unless I march straight up to him and say, "I, Draco Malfoy, am in love with you, Harry Potter," he will never know. If only, somehow, he could look at me. Really look at me, he might see this passion burning beneath my skin, burning deep within my soul. Passion that he feels too because I have glimpsed it in the depths of his splendid emerald eyes. But here we differ yet again. He can control whatever bizarre thoughts and emotions he may be having and write them off as just hormones. And maybe that's all it really is to him, just hormones rampaging through his body. Where as I lay awake night after night pondering the same questions over and over without an answer in sight. And how could he love someone like me in return? Why would he? All I've ever done to him was taunt and tease and insult. I am not perfection like he is. I am bruised, broken, tainted. I am scarred and ugly. How could he love something like me? Something so ugly. And how could I tell him, even if I ignored all that has been taught to be about holding in your emotions and betraying nothing? Could I even force myself to open up? Oh, and the hurt he could inflict then. I could never allow myself to be so vulnerable. And then there's my father. If he caught wind of this...I shudder to think of the repercussions. What am I thinking? Even, if by some miracle he actually returned my emotions, it could never last. Both our paths have already been chosen for us. Both going in opposite directions. His taking the path of light and truth and hope, and mine...mine is nothing but darkness and despair and servitude. And here I am again; pondering the same damn things I was last night and the night before. All because of him. All because I love him. Or I think I do. All because he is the single most desirable person it has ever been my great fortune and misfortune to meet. And I can never have him. But I must have him. I will have him because my name is Draco Malfoy, and I always get what I want. No matter what, Harry Potter, you will be mine.
Tick. Tock.
Tick. Tock.
Tick. Tock.
Three o'clock and all's...
-End
A/N: Please review, and I hate begging for them but please just do it and make my day. Anyway, I thought that Draco became very bitter at the end and I didn't mean for that to happen, but it turned out very nicely I think. Anyway, depending on my time schedule, I'll see if I can't work on the second part.
Next Chapter: Raindrops Fall Outside My Window: A rainy Saturday afternoon on a windowsill is spent comparing eyes to the color of the storm outside and the feelings that rage within. Options are weighed and decisions are made, but it sounds so much easier when it's in your mind.