Er – my only explanation for this chapter is that Draco's mind is slowly becoming more coherent as he nears the "beginning". Basically that means that I slipped out of the writing that I was doing before. Please forgive me if the style seems different. The first chapter was written a considerable amount of time before this and I feel I couldn't quite peg it down.

Post HBP points to be made:

Harry and Ginny got together but have not broken up… yet

Draco is not on any missions from Voldemort

Draco does confide in Myrtle

It's sixth year

Dumbledore is alive

Dissonance 2

The Beginning of Something Far Too Frightening

It's dark and cold. I'm freezing and my fingers feel stiff and my lips are shaking and it's almost like none of this is real because I can still only think of you. Only you. Not how a warming charm might help in the dead, cold of winter or the fact that I may very well freeze to death. But it's you, you, you and why can't I get you out of my head? It's like a buzzing little fly that you try to swat away but it never leaves and gets so close that the buzz, buzz, buzz is right inside of you and all around. It pushes out a part of me and makes me shake. Makes we quiver and want to curl up around something safe and warm.

The dungeons are cold.

They've never been this cold and you're so, so far away. You're safely tucked in bed with your warm, family of friends when all I have here to talk to are the ghosts that roam the halls.

If things could be different you could be here and I'd curl up safe inside and never be cold again.

But things will never be different because I'm not a person of chances. I'm a person of fear and a person of weakness and I can't ever get it to change even if I want it.

The sun is peeking over the edges of a magical window and it's telling me that I've once again spent the whole night awake. Spent the whole night thinking. Spent the whole night dreading closing my eyes.

Spent the whole night dreading those wonderful nightmares I could only hope were real.

I'm rubbing my eyes because I feel hollowed and stretched as if I've been awake for days when it's only been one night I spent sleepless. I'm putting on layers and layers and layers to strengthen me for today but nothing I wear seems to keep out the cold.

In the Great Hall you're only at the next table and I want to reach out and run my fingers along that hard, exposed neck and I want to push my hands under all that fabric to find warm skin and heated moments and never, ever be cold again. I want out of the dark and into that shining hope I know I'll never be able to find.

Someone's talking to you and I'm blazing with fury just as her hair blazes with the sun and her cheeks are glowing and yours are red and I want to smash that fire that should only shine for me.

She's comfort and she's stands for what you want and I'm awkward. I stand for what you hate and for what you'd never, ever succumb to. I never get the comfort of company. I never get the comfort of knowing I've someone there. I never get the comfort of intimacy. I'm thrown the ache of the dungeons and of dreams that make me choke in desperation.

You're laughing your hero laugh and you're face is alive and you're looking the happiest I've ever seen you. Something inside me is crumbling away and falling, falling, falling down that deep well where I keep unspoken desires. It's an area of me that I can never reach.

She smiles that smile of a newly found love and she's the damsel in distress and oh, how I'd really like to make her fit the role and make her cry out to be rescued.

But you're the hero and you'd come on trusty steed and your eyes see black and white and in the darkness I'd be so black you'd hardly see me. You'd take her away and disappear beyond the horizon in stories that are never fit for me.

Father told me not to believe in fairy tales. He says they're the hopes of old fools. Stories spun by those who could never really live and those who hoped to be carried away themselves.

But I believe in fairytales. Just as I hope to one day be dragged away on the back of a noble, glowing stallion and I'd never, ever have to look back. Just as I'd love to see that sunset, to see the colors seep back into earth and melt along a crimson sphere and to be a part of that moment when you disappear from reality.

My eyes are closed. My hands are tight, I think my quill's just snapped under my fingers and I try not to think about it and I try not to look and I try not to desperately hope it was me instead of a red headed, blood traitor.

My eyes burn. There's a bursting red orange in the darkness and someone's poking me. Hey, hey, are you okay?

But I'm not okay. I'm not right. I'm not fine. And I never, ever will be. Not while your there but not here and not while I'm so, so scared of what's come. Not while I'm trapped in my head and trapped inside visions of things that will never come to pass.

I will never be okay.

You're laughing your hero laugh. I want to smash the sound. You're not a hero, not while I'm suffering oh so close and you've yet to save me.

I want to turn the wheels of time and step back into a fifteen year old body. I want to be that boy who snarled and be the boy that couldn't care whether or not you necked with anyone, anywhere. I want to be back in those shoes that fit so well and I want to have that safe denial and I want to be before this – before all of this – and before he left and before I only had you here to focus on.

There's a lump in my throat and my thoughts, my ears, my eyes, my heart are being wrenched from you and thrown back to the present as someone hastily tells me the ink's now getting all over my shoes. Shoes could be the last thing on my mind but now I'm here and I've stopped watching you and the ink all over my now finished quill has leaked all over the table and is turning my eggs blue.

Are you sure you're alright? You've been acting off lately…

If only they could know. I'm making excuses and I'm pushing up from the table in a hurry. I've got to get out of here. My lungs are going to explode. My head is going to burst. My heart feels like it's a weakened creature that's been struggling with a great and terrible monster.

Not long ago I went to that old, run down girl's toilet. There's a ghost there, you know. I went to her and I cried my eyes out; cried my soul out onto that wet and musky floor. She's the only, only one I've been able to tell. Only she knows of my dreams and of my nightmares and she alone shares that fear that when she goes to reach for you her hand falls through like she's not even there.

I'm slouching through the great, open doors and somewhere there's sunlight streaming through a lone window. I wrap my cloak further around me because I've suddenly grown much colder than I was this morning and when I turn the corner I've finally frozen.

Father told me not to believe in love. He said that it was the misguided hope of old fools and that our emotions should be used for better things.

You're up against her, she's up against you and I can't see where either of you end. It's a clash of red and black and skin and hurried touches and it sends a shaft of heat deep through my ice and roots me to the spot.

How can I not believe in love when it feels like my body is crumbling when I watch you?

I don't even care that my frenzied squeak breaks your passion.

I don't even care that I'm becoming someone else. I don't care that I'm shooting a laugh and hurling an insult horrible enough to send the two of you meters apart. I don't care that you're furious. I don't care that she's mortified.

I just don't, don't care.

I don't care that you haven't dared look at me since our last fight. I don't care that when you do, you're a frightened child under wand point. I don't care that your ears turn pink and that you mutter to your friends how embarrassing it is that I'm always watching you.

I don't care that you know and I don't care that when I pushed you against that wall my body sent you the messages that my words could never do.

You're telling her that she'll be late for class. You're telling her that she should go. You're telling her that you'll catch up and that maybe, at lunch, you can finish what's been interrupted. You're eyes are narrowing towards me when you make that last a promise.

Sometimes I can't believe my luck. Sometimes there are things that happen that allow me to believe there's someone altering with my life and pulling at my strings. They're often bad and now I'm alone with you and now it's just us and something is telling me this isn't as good as it seems.

You're voice is rough and demanding. My ears are yours. It reminds me of that voice I've heard rasp with so much fervor in my nightmares. You ask me what I'm up to, you ask my why I'm there and why I can't just ever leave you alone.

I cannot answer. I'm battling with myself and I'm willing him to leave and I'm red and angry and it's suddenly not cold at all. I've got too many layers and too many clothes and so have you. I get hot just looking at you.

You're angered by my silence and, Of course, you say. Of course I'm not going to tell you and of course I only want to mess with your head.

You move to walk away and quickly – skillfully – like I've been doing this for years and, really, in my mind I have, I grab your wrist and my fingers mash against you palm and your confused but so am I because this isn't me either. Who is this?

Who am I?

You're wrist is cold – don't pull away – I hold you tight and maybe if I hold you just in the right way and in the right place our skin will melt together and without that barrier of skin I'll seep into you and live there deep inside where it's always warm and there's always that distant star – that twinkle in your eye that's a beacon of hope.

When I was nine father called me a coward for being afraid of toy dragons. Father is often right. I am a coward and I am afraid.

So very afraid.

I can't live like this any longer. With this confusion and this obsession and those nightmares that always remind me of the wonders that I cannot have. Cannot touch. I'm so afraid – such a coward that I force myself to spit the words and somehow they still come out like a threat.

You'd think when I finally told you something, when I finally made that first, cowardly step, that it would be something worthwhile but its not. The words are thick and unused and sound stupid, stupid, stupid.

I need you.

Your lips are moving – my eyes are glued. You form three words I did not want.

I don't understand.

Father once explained to me the difference between want and need. He said that when you want something you can easily live without it. When you want something it's a fleeting fancy of interest and that in time it goes away. When you want something, it isn't necessary.

When you need something it's essential. When you need something you're physically harmed when it's absent. When you need something you can't possibly survive intact without it.

I don't want you.

I need you.

And I know the difference.

How can you be so frustrating? How can you do this to me after I've been so stupid and cowardly and laid myself out to you?

Father always said I shouldn't believe in you. You're not really a hero and all you are is the misplaced hope of an old man.

I'm beyond frustrated. Beyond angry. Beyond wanting to curl up and die. I've broken away from myself and you don't understand? I've jumped down that pitch black hole that's the unknown and you won't even catch me?

You're pulling away. You're pulling away and I can't make you stop and I can't even think and now I'm so confused I'm not sure who's doing what and which part of this is real. My hand is still tightly grasping yours and with a frantic yank I pull you in and pull you down and I'm there in the moment waiting, a moment I've had years to make, and in your bewilderment you don't lean away until it's much to late.

Your lips taste like that missing part of me that I'd never been able to find. Your mouth makes my chest feel like I'm crushed under a hot and terrible weight. Your breath is the spark that ignites me.

It's a kiss molded from misunderstandings. A kiss shaped from years of loneliness. It's desperation in the form of a swift and furious movement. It's chaos uttered in a few, hurried breaths.

It's the middle of our end, the end to our beginning, and the beginning of something far too frightening.

And now my mind is becoming a blank, deserted canvas that's been slashed and weathered. Across its bereft wasteland is scrawled a simple, ugly word.

Forbidden.

Forbidden.

Forbidden

What would father say?

He'd say you were the enemy. He'd tell me not to trust you. He'd tell me a million and one things that I don't want to believe but have been forced to for years.

But father's gone, you've seen to that. Suddenly I'm gasping, hot and furious against your lips, my body is raking with a dry and horrible sobbing that rattles my foundations. You make your move to pull away. You're shaking your head in disbelief. In shock. No, you say. NO.

Muggles are told not to believe in magic. It's only the hopes of old fools. But magic is as real and as important as the breaths that we take. There is a part of a child that secretly believes in magic, if only the innocent magic of childhood. It's like the part of me that believes in magic and believes in fairy tales and in love and you. It's like that part of me that never wants to give up.

You're shaking your head. You're lips are moving. I think finally you understand.

No.

And I'm a little boy again. I'm reaching out my hand and I'm offering myself to you and you can figure out the right sort for yourself, thanks.

I need you.

You're running away.

The streaming light is gone. It's so very cold.

My mind screams for you to come back. Come back. I'm a lost and frightened child and my father's being pulled away to that miserable rock in the middle of the sea only now it's you and the feelings aren't the same.

Come back. I need you.

I need you.

I need you.

I need you.

More than I've ever needed anything before.

I'm sorry that took longer than it should have and I'm sorry it's short. I told people that it would be soon in coming but no luck.  I was horribly uninspired when it came to this and then HBP and all the plot bunnies started to eat my up. I had to drag myself away from them to finish this chapter. There is but one left because, remember, Draco's obsession has a beginning, middle and end. Just all in the wrong order! Ha. He still has a whole stage left.

Also, I'm beginning to fear my dear is slightly off his rocker. It's just much more fun to write that way.

Thanks a lot to those who reviewed, much more than I expected for this. I did think I'd get at least one telling me how horrible I am and that I should just go swallow my fist and die. sigh You all exceed expectations.

Also, pimp Dissonance (or venoz) if you must. Really… if you insist I think I may just allow it. Hint Hint.