In Everlasting Peace - CHAPTER 2

Draco didn't know when he had really come to terms with the fact that he was gay, but he didn't beat himself up over it or let what other people said about being gay get to him. Not that he would date most of the people that went to Hogwarts. There were a few Slytherins he found attractive, but they weren't anything special enough to pursue and get his heart broken over. But then, there was Ron. He didn't know what had first attracted him to Ron, but one thing he did beat himself up over were the times he was forced to say shit to or about Ron because it was expected. He hated it. He wished, standing here in the common room by the fire, that he could just drop to his knees and pour out his heart right there on that fucking ugly black rug. He'd tell everyone about how much his mother detested him and how he was nothing but a mere temporary object of interest to his father. He'd scream at them about how much he hated them all for forcing him to be something he wasn't. About how he wanted to die and had failed at attempts to kill himself several times. About how beautiful he thought Ron was, above all. But that was nothing but a fantasy. What did he expect? They'd probably end up all ganging him after classes one day or something. And what would Ron do when he heard? Come charging in on a white horse and save him? Fat chance. Yes, Draco thought, it's just better to keep quiet and know what's going to happen tomorrow. He sat down in his favorite chair by one of the windows, still thinking. Then he got up and brought over some homework to try and finish it before the weekend was over. He sat there for a few minutes, staring at a page in his book, but in the end, he got up and returned to his dormitory, too restless to do much of anything. He fell onto his bed fully clothed and tried to get to sleep for nearly two hours. By then everyone else was already sleeping. It was no use, he HAD to do it. It was the only way to make himself feel better. He got up and made his way out of the room and down the stairs quietly. The common room was deserted and unfriendly looking. Not that it ever looked friendly, but it was definetly different in the dark. He continued walking across the room and made his way out the entrance. He pushed his hand flat on the wall to balance himself in the dark and fished around in his pockets for his wand. "Lumos," he whispered. A glaring light appreared at the tip of his wand and he quickly resumed walking. He took the shortest route he knew to the deserted classroom he liked to spend much of his time in. The noises he made as he walked echoed against the stone walls and rebounded off them, making Draco a little paranoid as he repeatedly looked behind him into the darkness. Most of the objects in the paintings were sleeping, but awoke with a start at the glare of Draco's wand and the echoes he made, and they whispered angrily at him that he should be in bed. Draco finally reached his destination, pushing the door open with a creak and stepping inside. The walls were panelled with a dark red wood that almost looked black. On the floor were black and white marble square tiles. In the corner was an old desk and a broken chair, but besides these, there was no other furniture in the room. there was one window with a seat across from the door. As he looked around at the familiar surroundings, Draco breathed a sigh of relief.This was where he could let loose. This was, unofficially, his room. He took off his coat and laid it on the desk. He then crossed back to the window and sat down on the window seat slowly. He liked to look out the window at the stars and moon and imagine that someone who cared about him was looking at the same sky. It was on this ledge that he had realized that no one had ever told him that they loved him. No one ever bothered to tell him that he was beautiful or smart or even ask him what he wanted to do when he got out of Hogwarts. Draco averted his gaze to the glass in the window. It was very old, so old that it had bubbles and swirls in it, like the glass that was handmade in the 1800's. Draco brought his fingers up to the cool glass and traced a rather large swirl, thinking about how hard it must have been to make glass the way they did back then. Suddenly, Draco took his fingers off the glass and turned around to look at the room behind him. He held his breath, realizing that he was alone. Not just alone, but Alone. He had always been Alone, but now he knew it. There wasn't one person in the world who he could truly say cared about him in a non- sexual way. What was so wrong with him? He knew he was intimidating and when he got angry he said things he didn't mean... maybe that was it. Maybe they all just thought he was s dick. But what about his mother and father? They didn't love him. He remembered one day, when he was about seven, his parents and he were sitting at the dinner table quietly, eating. His father had taken him to buy his first toy broomstick. He looked over at his father and said,

"Thank you for my broomstick, father."

"I just hope you don't kill yourself on it. I was nine when I had my first broom, but I couldn't take your begging for much longer."

"I'm sorry..." Draco said quietly,"I....love you, father." Draco had seen another little boy that was no more than three years old in the toy store holding his mother and father's hands. He had looked up at them and said,"I love you Mummy and Daddy!" They laughed at him softly and told him that they loved him too. Draco wondered why his parents had never told him they loved him, so he decided to tell them first. His father set down his fork on his plate as both his parents turned to look at each other. Lucius turned back to his son, eyebrows raised, but resumed eating. Draco remembered that he had cried himself to sleep that night. The memory faded and Draco found that he was back at Hogwarts and Malfoy Mansion was miles away, much to his relief. Trying to push it to the back of his mind again, Draco lit up a cigarette and held it in between his thumb and middle fingers as he watched the smoke curl and circle up to the ceiling. He dug deep in his pockets again and took out his knife. The handle was made out of steel, the same as the blade, and had all kinds of interesting shapes and animals and designs on it. Draco had often looked at it for hours, trying to decipher what it all meant. Suddenly, with one swift motion, Draco brought it down on his wrist. He grimaced as a trickle of blood seeped out of the wound and hit the window sill. He rolled up his sleeve further, exposing the pink scars and white, raised ones that he knew so well. He was young, so most of them would fade. He brought the knife down again slowly to his pale skin and pressed down. He moved the knife towards himself and waited for the blade to peirce his skin. He winced as it did and repeated this on the other arm. By this time, Draco's A positive blood was all over the window sill and his arms. He let his tears run down his face for the first time in several years as he asked himself why he had to hurt so much. Why no one cared about him. Why he couldn't have Ron. He got up and walked dizzily across the room to get his coat. He pressed it down on his wounds, hoping to lessen the bleeding. The rough fabric only made it hurt more and Draco winced again as it touched the wounds. He crossed the room again with the coat and sat down at the window seat for the second time. He wiped up the rest of the blood on the window sill with the part of the coat that wasn't covering his arms. The coat was black so he could easliy have it washed without anyone noticing that there was even anything on it. A few minutes later he removed the coat to see if the bleeding had stopped yet. There was no longer any blood seeping out of any of the cuts, but they looked pretty bad. This was starting to remind him too much of a poem he'd read:

I sat there stripped of all I knew

On my concrete floor

Took out a sheet of paper

Do you think of me anymore

I drew a picture

A picture of you

Now it is torn

It used to be new

If art is life and life is pain

And pain is when you scream

Then why do I still think of you

Why are you in my dreams

Yes, it certainly was very fitting. Draco inhaled and exhaled on his cigarette a few times and finally put it out. He opened the window, threw it out, shivered, and then closed the window again.

Meanwhle, Ron laid awake on his bed. He was afraid to sleep for fear of having another dream about Draco. He didn't want to want him. The problem wasn't the fact that he had finally realized that he was bisexual, but that he knew that if he fell in love with Draco Malfoy, it would slowly eat him alive for a long time. Even if Draco was gay, he wouldn't date me. He hates me. But why did he smile at me? Ron sighed and rolled over to face the window. He looked out at the stars and after a while he fell asleep, hoping he wouldn't have another dream about Draco, but at the same time wanting to. He had the same dream again as last time, except this time, it was longer because there was no one and nothing to interrupt it. Ron had a fitful night, waking up every hour, and when he finally got back to sleep, he had the same dreams all over again. When morning finally came, Ron found himself tightly twisted in his sheets and sleeping sideways on his bed with his head and feet hanging off. Ron did not get up and join Harry and Hermione for breakfast like he usually did. He stayed in bed until nearly one o'clock. When he finally woke up and went down to the Great Hall for lunch, his eyes were red and he had circles under them. He slouched into his seat beside Hermione and she eyed him as he tried pouring himself a glass of Pumpkin Juice, but kept missing the glass. She finally took over and poured it for him, tutting.

"What's wrong with you?" She asked.

"Bad night," Ron mumbled.

"I'm sorry," she replied as she kissed him on the cheek.

At this, Ron perked up and looked at her.

"What was that for?" Hermione shrugged her shoulders and smiled. Harry smirked at Ron. Ron had come in in the middle of lunch, so he had to bolt down his food. Staying awake all night had made him extrememly hungry,and he wasn't about to go without seconds, at least. After they were all done eating, they got up and decided to head to the library to finish their homework before it was due the next day. They plonked down at their favorite table in the far corner of the library. Hermione took a book out of her bag entitled Mating Habits of Hippogriffs, making Harry and Ron gag.

"Ugh, Hermione! Why are you reading THAT?" Ron asked quizzically.

"I know, I know, it's really gross, but I'm trying read as much as I can this year, and...well...usually I just grab a book at random."

"What? You haven't already read the whole libraray?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and opened her book. Harry and Ron spent a few moments gazing over her shoulders and making fun of the Hippogriff's mating positions and such.

"Look at the look on it's face!" Harry managed to choke through his hysterical laughter,"it looks like it's just discovered that someone's stuck a pickle up it's arse."

"Well," Ron replied through his own laughter,"someone has." And that set them off even more. When they finally calmed down, they opened their own books and tried to do the rest of their homework the best they could without bursting out laughing every few minutes. Ron looked down at his open book and started reading the section in his Potions book about the potential of powdered unicorn hooves in Paralyzing Draughts. He opened his ink bottle and dipped his quill into it. Just as he was preparing to write down something about the Paralyzing Draught, he looked upand to his surprise, Draco Malfoy was sitting at the table opposite him reading a book. He didn't think Harry or Hermione had noticed Draco, so he could freely stare. Eventually he looked back down at his work and wrote down a few sentences. Hermione was sitting on his left and she leaned in towards him and said,

"I'm out of ink, and I left all my spare bottles in my dormitory. Can I borrow some of yours?"

"Sure, go ahead," Ron muttered, looking up at Draco again. Hermione's hand brushed his as she reached over to dip her quill into his ink. He looked over at her and even though she was writing something, he could see her face getting pink. He went back to writing his Potions essay, occasionally checking to see how long it was. When he was finally finished, Harry was still working, and Hermione looked deeply engrossed in a new book, so he decided to get up and look at the books in the Quidditch section while he waited for Harry to finish. He walked down the aisle to the very end and picked out a book on the history of the Chudley Cannons. It was a very fat and heavy book, and left a nice gap in between the two other books beside it. He opened the book to a random page and stood there a moment, reading a list of names of all the people who had been on the team and dates that they were accepted into it. Ron looked up abruptly and saw a pair of gray eyes staring at him over the top of the book facing the other aisle. They searched his face. It was Draco. Ron stared back, trying not to let himself get stuck in Draco's gaze. Without warning, the eyes disappeared, and Ron was left standing there looking at just the books on the opposite aisle. He looked back down his aisle and saw Draco look at him before he sat back down in his chair with a new book. Ron put the book he was holding back up and was freaking out a little as he made his way back to Harry and Hermione.

"You finished yet?" he asked Harry, trying to appear calm.

"Almost....there." Harry said, adding another sentence to his potions essay.

"What do you wanna do now?" Ron inquired in a bored tone of voice, but his brain was far from being bored.

"Well, dinner's in an hour, so whatever we do will have to be quick." Hermione cut in knowingly.

"I fancy a nap...I stayed up until nearly three working on this damn essay and still didn't get it finished until just now," Harry yawned.

Hermione turned to Ron. "What about you?"

"Urr...I dunno, I might just walk around for a bit."

"Mind if I join you?"

"If you want," Ron answered, rather wishing to be alone.

Ron, Hermione, and Harry made their way past all of the books and out of the library. Right as Ron was going out the door, Draco noticed a small book fall out of his bag. Draco ran to get it, intending to return it. It was small and black. It wasn't a school book, so Draco's curiosity got the better of him as he watched Ron walk down the hall with the others. He opened it to the first page, which simply said,'RON WEASLEY.' Draco felt like the luckiest man alive... if he wasn't dreaming, he had just found Ron Weasley's journal. Draco grinned, closed it with a snap, and walked down the hall along the familiar route that took him to his deserted classroom. When he got there, he opened the door and set his bag on the desk. He the crossed over to the window seat, as usual, sat down, and opened Ron's journal again. From just skimming it, he could see that Ron was truly a writer. He wrote about all sorts of things...opinions, theories, ideas. But the things that most caught his attention were the things he wrote about his family and friends. Draco didn't know what it was like to have friends or a family that loved him. Then Draco's own name caught his attention. He did a small double take. Sure enough, it said, 'Draco...". He flipped back to the beginning of the entry and started reading.

'I think I'm going crazy. Am I gay? I don't think I am, because I think I'd still date Hermione, but at the same time I'm starting to get this weird obsession for Draco Malfoy. I can't believe I just wrote that. I mean, I have plently of reasons to hate him, and I feel like such a traitor, but that day when he smiled at me...I dunno, something just clicked in my brain. Maybe I'm bi. But now that Hermione finally does want me, all I want is Draco. Ever since I first saw him this year at the start of term feast, I have felt like he's eating me alive on the inside. I find myself thinking about him during my classes, so now I am having to stay up very late re- reading the chapters we did that day in order to finish my homework on time. I don't know why I'm so obsessed, I mean, it could never happen. We're so different. His Dad hates me and my family and has for a long time, and his dad's a death eater. I assume his son is headed in the same direction. But, I just have this feeling that Draco's different. I always have, but I was never really attracted to him this way until now. I mean, would his dad smile at me? No. But Draco did, I think."

As Draco read, his heart started to beat faster and faster in excitement and anxiety. He longed to run and find Ron and tell him how much he wanted him and that he was different from his father, but he was afraid Potter or Grager would be around. In the end, Draco ended up taking out his ink and quill and writing below Ron's words:

'I have always found the written word to house so much more emotion than when it is spoken. I do not lack the courage to talk to you, but I thought I'd save us both from fumbling through spoken words face to face. So I'll tell you plainly here. I adore you. This is how you make me feel even though I don't even know you...happy, but at loss for what I know I can't have. But, I don't know, maybe that's not true anymore. I know I may be bitter and angry, obviously, but impatience is not usually one of my weaknesses. You torment me. The way you look at me makes me want to grab you and make you explain yourself. I think I have read the last thing you wrote about eleven times now, wondering if it's real. I know you don't realize it, but I come to the entrance to Gryffindor Tower and sit down, hidden by that suit of armor a few feet away. I go there whenever I have spare time, waiting for you to come in or out for hours at a time just to see you for a few seconds. It's crazy. I'm not sure what first attracted me to you, but then, you have changed a lot since last year. And you have the right feeling about me- my father and I are completely different. In fact, I turned down the Dark Mark over the summer, but my father has influence with Voldemort, so I won't be hurt, although father is furious with me. Voldemort is counting on father to persude me into accepting it next summer, but don't share any of his views. It hurts me every time I have to say something shitty to you because of what is expected of me.When people get smarter, they don't stop doing all the bad things they do, they just think up better reasons for doing it. That's how my father is, and he expects me to keep up his reputation while I'm here. If I didn't treat you like dirt, can you imagine what my father would do to me? My 'friends' would go home and tell their Mummy and Daddy, and that would tarnish my father's holy reputation. I mean, true, I dislike Potter and Granger, but you're different. I don't know why. See you around.

Draco Malfoy.'

Draco closed the book again, feeling satisfied, and left to find Ron. Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione were walking down the Charms corridor. They had split up with Harry a few minutes ago at the staircase leading up to up to the Fat Lady's Portrait. They were rounding a corner, trying to think of converstation topics.

"You've changed a lot this year, Ron. But so have I," Hermione said sheepishly.

"I take it that's a good thing."

"Yes."

"Good."

Hermione's hand was brushing dangerously close to his as they walked. Ron guessed she was hoping he'd take it. He wanted to, but he knew it was no good. If he dated Hermione, he would just want Draco all the more.

"Harry told me you fancied me."

Hermione opened her mouth in shock and embarassment and started to say something, but Ron cut her off.

"-or rather, he wrote it to me on a peice of parchment since you forbid him to tell me."

"I can't believe him!" Hermione said loudly, turning pink.

"It's okay. I mean, I used to really fancy you a lot, and I still do a bit, but this year I kind of gave up on you because I was tired of waiting for you. So you've caught me at a bad time, because now I want someone else." Ha. Now see what it's like!

"Oh," Hermione said, hurt.

"I really do care about you, though, Hermione, and you're like a sister to me. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Hermione said quietly as she smiled sadly and wiped a tear off her cheek,"I think I'm gonna go finish my book."

"Are you sure? Will you be okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Are you positive?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. See you later."

"See you."

Hermione took a left turn at the next hallway and Ron kept walking straight. He kept walking for a ways and heard footsteps behind him. Draco Malfoy was running down the hall towards him. When he finally caught up with Ron, he just stood there for a few minutes, out of breath. He eventually produced Ron's book and managed to say,

"You dropped this."

"Oh...er...thanks."

"Listen, I..er- I'm.... sorry about- um...about yesterday."

Ron stared. He had never heard Draco Malfoy appologize to him. This was about as common an occurrance as Ron wearing a speedo in the middle of a blizzard. Draco's ears turned red.

"Urr...no problem."

"See you around."

"Yeah."

Draco turned and walked quickly in the other direction. Ron looked down at the book and his jaw dropped.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!" Ron said to himself.

Thoughts were racing through Ron's mind about 20 times as fast as his feet were racing back to Gryffindor Tower.