Although the sun was shining happily, it seemed, through the windows in his dormitory, Draco Malfoy had yanked the curtain shut tight around his four-poster, trying to make himself an artificial night. He hated it when the world outside was so blatantly defying his mood. He had been lying on his side, staring at the emerald green curtains surrounding him and thinking about the night before. He had done it again. Stayed up walking around the castle and getting completely wasted. He actually met Pansy on the way to the Prefect's Bathroom, and being drunk, he had done who-knows-what with her because she was the only person that really ever gave him any positive attention and superficial love. He told himself all the time that it was pretty much the human condition to be lonely, and he might as well get used to it, but he found that any time he actually found someone who paid attention to him (which was never often) he latched onto them no matter how disagreeable he found them.
Draco rolled over on his back lethargically, still feeling the effects of the Firewhiskey he had drunk, and almost yelled out in surprise at the contact he made with Pansy's sleeping form. He stared for a minute, blinking, and then sat up slowly. Draco knew that he had engaged in some foul play with her the night before, but strangely, he couldn't deal with the evidence. Even though he had known it was real, he thought that he could push it away and lie to himself if he didn't have to see her. But there she was, lying in his bed with her warm body pressed up to his. He eventually averted his gaze to the ceiling, biting his lip and getting a sick feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with being hungover. He could feel his throat getting tight and he tensed up in an attempt to avoid crying. Panicking, he laid back again, breathing hard. He could feel tears collecting at the corners of his eyes and eventually sliding down the sides of his face. Draco clenched his fists, damning his life all over again.
He looked over at Pansy a second time. She had most of the sheets twisted around her naked body and the sun peeking through another crack in the curtains only made her pale skin look paler. His gaze fell to her stringy dark hair, which fell abundantly around her shoulders and into her face. Her brows were knitted as if she were concentrating hard on whatever she was dreaming. She looked so without fault, with the lights in her hair and her lips slightly parted. He felt so ashamed and he didn't even remember what he had done. How would he tell her that it hadn't meant anything to him, that he didn't even remember, when she so obviously cared for him? He knew the feeling of having his heart ripped out and stepped on. How could he cause her that pain? How could he have been so stupid and irrational? Angrily wiping the tears from his face, Draco looked at his watch. It was nearly one. He listened to it tick as he turned his hand over slowly, looking at the mixture of white and red scars that had made their home there for years. Too many years. Too many years of feeling unimportant and unloved. Just being thrown away by everyone who was supposed to care about him.

Draco really didn't feel like pulling himself together, venturing out into the common room, and pretending that everything was fine, but he got up anyway. He let his feet slowly come into contact with the cold stone floor, shivered, and then winced as the sun fully hit his eyes this time. Slowly pushing his near empty bottle of Firewhiskey underneath his bed, he staggered over to his trunk and pulled out a random shirt and pair of slacks, not even caring whether they matched or not. A gray sweater and black trousers hit the floor sadly. Draco looked back inside his trunk at all of his dark clothes and wondered when the last time that he had worn anything white was. Picking up the clothes again and throwing them on indifferently, Draco tried not to think about how he could hear Pansy breathing behind the bedcurtains. Then, shuffling over the hard, uneven floor, he dragged himself inside the bathroom and stepped in front of the mirror. Leaning over the sink, he watched his gaunt expression. Draco snorted at the dark circles under his eyes and his palid complexion. His eyes made their way from his white blonde hair, hanging in his face, down to his forehead. Then he stared into his own eyes. They were gray, and seemed rather distant. He wondered if they seemed that way to other people, too. Then his nose, slightly pointed, something he had inherited from his father. His lips, full, pink, unsmiling. He tried a grin, and he thought it made his face light up a little, but didn't like the way it felt. Smiling wasn't something he did often, and besides, If he had learned anything from his father, it was that hangovers weren't pleasant. He had no reason to be smiling. Draco buried these thoughts as he picked up his toothbrush and toothpaste. He unscrewed the cap on the toothpaste and squeezed out a pea-sized dollop onto his toothbrush. He stared at it for a moment, then shoved it into his mouth and started moving it back and forth against his teeth rhythmically. Once he had finished brushing his teeth, he spat into the sink. He continued his ritual, picking up his comb and holding under the water for a few seconds. He raised it up to his head and combed his hair, shivering at the water trickling down his head. Deciding he was composed enough, Draco looked into the mirror one last time, snorted at his reflection again, and left.
He avoided looking over at his bed as he exited his dormitory. The common room was fairly empty, as usual, being Saturday, and Draco was glad. A few people greeted him, but he simply nodded and made his way across the room. Pansy was sitting in his favorite chair waiting for him. She must have gotten dressed and left while Draco was still in the bathroom. She turned, seeing Draco come into the common room, and she grinned and raised one arched eyebrow at him. Draco nodded to her also, looked down at his feet, and kept walking out of the common room. He couldn't deal with all the emotion it would require to even say hello to her. Even though pretty much all of the student body had that undying perception that he was like a concrete wall--hard, cold, and unfeeling--it simply wasn't the truth no matter how much Draco wanted it to be. He was bitter, but far from emotionally unfeeling. Walking down the corridor and away from the common room, Draco dwelled on how it would be not just not feel anything anymore. He wondered if there was a book in the Restricted section on Magical Lobotomies, and then laughed quietly at his own joke. Once he was almost at the end of the corridor, he heard Pansy's clacking shoes running to catch up with him. She grabbed his arm.
"Where are you going?" she asked desperately, eager for his company. She smiled, trying to appear sultry and seductive.
"I don't know," Draco responded quietly.
"Well, I'll walk with you."
"You can if you want, but listen, I...I think I should tell you...Look, I don't even remember what happened last night okay? All I know is, I woke up, and you were in my bed, and I don't know why."
Pansy looked up at him, unbelieving and hurt. "Bastard," she said angrily, looking away.
"I'm sorry that it happened this way, but at the time I just wasn't thinking. I have a nasty habit of trying to drink my problems away. I wish it never would have happened. I'm sorry"
Pansy didn't say anything, just glared up at him through a curtain of hair. He could see her face giving away hints that she was going to cry. Draco squeezed her shoulder, sighed and said quietly, "If you knew me at all, you'd never want me in the first place. You'd think I was completely mad, and you'd stay away." Pansy shivered and shook her head. She turned and ran back in the direction of the common room.
He watched her run back down the hall, wiping her face. Draco slumped against the wall, sliding down to the floor. He just felt like that's where he needed and deserved to be at the moment. He ground his teeth bitterly. He was no better than dirt.