DISCLAIMER I have no ownership over anything related to the potterverse. All characters and scenery mentioned are copyright JK Rowling. I'm just a fan having fun.The story takes place a good while after HBP but obviously prior to the next book.
The air was cold and heavy. It seeped through his thick clothing and invaded ivory skin, chilling him to the bone in a way that had become nothing short of familiar. He had spent years living in dingy dungeons. This cold was nothing new to him...it was more like an old friend, an old comfort that continued to stick around even when everything else was changing. Oh and everything surely was changing. It wasn't however, changing in the way that things were supposed to change at his age. Right now they were supposed to be looking up, doors were supposed to be opening, the future was supposed to look promising. Instead all that he could see before him was a certain bleak destination, an unavoidable doom that day after day drew closer and closer. Now it was on his doorstep. He could almost smell the death and destruction looming in the air. It was not a good time to be in between on your morals. There was no tightwire to walk that balanced safely between good and evil, you were either one or you were the other and he had already made his choice.
His breath hit the air in steady spurts, crystallizing momentarily in front of him before liquidating to nothingness. The street was devoid of life, people were holed up safely, all the signs were turned to closed and windows were boarded up. This was a time for summer houses in other countries but it wasn't a time to operate a shop in the wizarding world. He had the distinct feeling that he was the only person left in this shell of a town. That did not bother him nearly as much as it once would've. Isolation was something he sought these days, quiet corners away from the rowdy celebrations and hopeless sobs. Somewhere he could be alone with his thoughts...or atleast feel like he was. There was no such thing as alone anymore, no matter where he went he knew that his thoughts were now open purchase. Perhaps he was just being narcissistic in assuming that anyone would care what he was thinking in the first place. That wouldn't have been out of the ordinary for somebody like himself.
A hand rose to remove flaxen strands of hair from his forehead, silver eyes narrowing momentarily in frustration at the new development. He still wasn't accustomed to the length. Maybe it would go on bothering him forever, even so the energy and effort it would require to fix that little problem was out of the question. He did not have the drive or the power to do such things. He felt weak in a way that he'd never felt before. The undeniable insomnia he'd suffered during his last year as a Hogwarts student didn't even begin to compare. This was something else all together. There was a weakness that made his muscles feel tight and jellied at the same time, his bones soft, skin sensitive, nothing was right but he would never admit to that.
He would never admit to the bitter guilt that chewed constantly at the back of his mind. The recurring reminder that he had put himself in this predicament out of vengeance, anger, stupid things that he now realized had not been worth it, was enough to make him want to collapse. Sometimes he wished that he could. That just for a week he could lay down and rest...really rest. Not the unkempt, sloppy, nightmare ridden rest that he'd been coping with of late. It was pathetic how he was no good at any of this. It wasn't supposed to bother him, it had never bothered his father. He was supposed to be a Malfoy and this kind of service was supposed to be in his blood, he was supposed to be proud to receive specific missions, he was not supposed to care that these missions were truly meant only to end his life. But he did care.
He did. He could still remember the look on his headmasters face, that all-knowing expression that made him want to strangle the man. The quiet resignation and ultimate destruction that even though it was not truly on his hands felt as though it were. Dumbledore had promised him hope for something else, he had offered him the choice of a better life, a life above the definite path his Father had set for him upon his birth. He'd given him a choice and all that Draco had done in return was scoff and stand cowardly in his spot, incapable of killing the man who he wished drastically that he could hate enough to murder in cold blood. He couldn't though and that was even worse than if he could. Atleast if he'd killed him it would be undeniable, a reality that set in cement the spot in which he stood. Now instead he was stuck with the what-ifs and the could've beens. He was trapped forever with the nagging thought that he had never been allowed to really make his decision.
He comforted himself with reassurances that it didn't matter. He would be in this position regardless because there was simply no way that he could fit in with the dimwitted dullards who Dumbledore had trained dutifully. He told himself that if he'd lowered his wand he would be dead too, insisted that he would be laying broken in the ground as well. Oh, Draco Malfoy would do whatever it took to bring that feeling of self-satisfaction back for a moment or two, anything to make it all feel justified. He would do this and then he would walk on through the barren streets, walk until he found the numb. The numb that would echo through his body and force everything else away. The numb would fix it. All of it.