A Little Bit of Melodrama

by Allychik6

For the first time in my memory, I feel compelled to tell my life’s rather pathetic story. Normally I am not given to such sentimental melodramas such as this, but everyone is entitled to their fair share. Some abuse this privilege more then others I shal

This is what happens when several things come together. 1) I lost my flashdrive and became depressed. 2) I went to see Harry Potter 4. 3) I had an idea stuck in my head from a long time ago. I know, I know. I should have worked on Fragments, but I was a little too depressed and this was a one shot. So here we go, I finally got this idea out of my head.

To: Whoever finds this letter first

From: Draconis Lucious Malfoy

For the first time in my memory, I feel compelled to tell my life's rather pathetic story. Normally I am not given to such sentimental melodramas such as this, but everyone is entitled to their fair share. Some abuse this privilege more then others; I shall do my best not to. No guarantees.

Since this is a life story, I suppose I must start with my birth. I could simply tell you the dates and times of my mother's labor and such, but I do not consider that my birth. Birth is when one enters into the world ready to experience life as it comes. My childhood was spent following the every order of my mother and father. I was given very little choice, and when I was the choice was nearly always a test. Mother often beat me if I did not behave as a pure blood ought to. Father locked me in my room for—well, let's just say extended periods of time. How could that be considered life?

And then I went to school, away from my parents and amid those who wanted me to learn. But I was my parents' child. All the other students seemed so alive, happy, and excited, except my fellow Slytherins. Our parents gave us all the same command, "Do not associate with those below your station or do not come home." We saw school for what it really was, the ultimate test to please our parents. So we mocked our peers and debased those considered to be of lower status. People feared, hated, and indeed pitied us for our terrifying outlook on life. I cannot number the times my housemates were called DeathEaters, and just imagine I was their king. I was the king of the Slytherin DeathEaters.

But through all of that, I was still in the womb, not yet born. Ah, my unnamed and unknown companion, can you comprehend being alive and not living? Do you know what it is to go through the motions of life and not be touched by the beauty of the season's first snow or a single blooming rose? Can you understand what it is like to not take pride in a day of hard work or joy in a job well done? It is a most daunting concept.

October 14 of my fifth year at Hogwarts at a little after two in the afternoon, I was born. The fourth years had recently vacated the potions classroom, and my class was just beginning. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a bit of parchment lying on the floor underneath a cauldron. Someone had dropped a note, a juicy bit of gossip, and potential blackmail. Who could resist?

Here, I've copied it for you to read:

I just don't know what to do. My parents would KILL me if they knew! You've got to help me!

Ginny

It was the littlest Weasley, the Weasleyette, Ginevra. She had written that interesting tidbit of knowledge that was in fact nothing. And that was the cause of my birth, a single piece of worthless paper. Interesting isn't it? My enemy was the one to give me the greatest gift of my life. She gave me curiosity about another person.

Her note caused me to think; I could not get it out of my head no matter how I tried. Just what had she done that her parents would want to kill their child? If it were my family the answer would have been simple to deduce, but hers? With its unbound love? Surely they would not go so far as to punish their only daughter.

There was only one answer to this insatiable problem: I had to write her back. Only her answer could appease my newly awakened and frightfully hungry curiosity. Luckily for me, this was all during Potions class, and Professor Snape was lecturing. He never cared if I didn't pay attention. So I quickly sent her an anonymous note and a return address.

All that day and the next I anxiously awaited her response, but when it finally arrived, I was unhappy. She had written a polite little missive that could be summed up in the two words Fuck Off. I was only unhappy until I realized she had not given an answer because she did not know she could trust me. Of course at the particular time she couldn't, but I was too obsessed to admit the truth. All I wanted was the answer to my question, and I was willing to do anything to get it.

I had no choice but to write another letter in an attempt to gain her trust and thus the juicy gossip I so desired. The effects were devastating. It didn't take long for me to become interested in her whole life, as it was so different from my own. I secretly coveted every letter she sent me, and to this day I still have every one. You cannot imagine my joy at seeing her open one of my letters at breakfast in the Great Hall. I would listen in earnest, waiting for some sign that I had made her day, some hint of laughter or a smile. And I was often rewarded not only with her happiness, but also with cries of her brother's displeasure. He detested Ginny's secret pen pal. It was truly the highlight of my day. Thinking back to those days, even now, brings a smile to my face.

Until our first fight. I had not realized the issue was so important to her, and if I had I probably still would not have given in to her demands. She wanted my name.

By this time it was December, and I could not survive as I once had. Without her letters I would have revert back to my pre-birth state of existence, also known as death. If she knew my name, Ginny might never write to me again and thus cause my reversion. That is what I thought, and that is what I feared.

On the fifth refusal to reveal my identity she sent me a very short note.

I'm sorry, but I can't write anymore unless I know your name. Ginny

There it was, in black and white, my nightmare come true. For two weeks I bemoaned my situation, fantasized about meeting her in person while still hiding my identity, and wrote her letters pleading for her to write back. She did not. But at least she didn't return them unopened.

By December eighteenth I consented as every other man in love has done countless times before.

I'll be in the library, back table, last chair at eleven pm on Saturday.

I spent all day in the library, too impatient to stay away. The hours dwindled, passing slower than if they had gone backwards, and my anticipation increased. But as eleven drew nearer, I became afraid and wanted nothing more then for the ordeal to never come. That's when the time disappeared faster then I could whip out an insult. I never saw her (the calming potion I took worked a little too well) but I know she came.

When I woke on Sunday morn, a deep wave of despair washed over me. I had slept through her visit; I had missed my chance to fight for our relationship. It was over. Gathering my scattered books and parchment with a deep and surprisingly sincere depression, I saw a little scrap of paper.

I need time.

All was not lost!

Of course I would give her all the time she needed. That lovely sentiment lasted all of three hours—maybe. I quickly sent her another note imploring, beseeching, and indeed begging her to accept my suit. Later she told me that letter made her laugh so hard she spit pumpkin juice out her nose at lunch that day. I wouldn't know; I spent the whole lunch period pacing holes in the floor of my room. She also told me two things influenced her decision, the desperation in the tone of my letter to her that day, and my appearance the night before. She said she had never seen someone more worn out and haggard from the potential loss of a friend.

After that our friendship only solidified. We did not meet. That would have been courting disaster. But she was just as interested in me as I was in her; we had no choice but to continue our correspondences, exchanging letters daily, sometimes hourly. Ginny became something I thought existed only in fairytales and myths. She was something of a miracle for me, something I knew I did not deserve. Ginny Weasley had more courage then any Griffindor before her; she became my friend, my confidant, and my equal. And I told her so. We shared tales of woe, happiness, success, and humor.

March third, that was the next day of importance and the one I cherish the most. I don't remember what the weather was like or what I wore that day. I couldn't tell you what classes I attended or even which day of the week it was. In fact, I do not remember anything about it, except that she came to see me. She broke our previously unspoken agreement and came to see me. She must have spent a long time waiting, trying to see ME.

I don't know how she got into my room, and every time I thought to ask her she either changed the topic or distracted me (although the latter was not terribly difficult, I'll admit). It was not a question to be asked in a letter, and now I don't think I want to know. It would ruin the romance of the day. I like to imagine it took days of planning and ours to execute, that she had to steal, bribe, and seduce to get what she wanted, and that it was half the lure of the forbidden that brought her to my room that night. In reality, she probably asked to borrow Potter's cloak and followed some idiot. Reality is rarely as delicious as fantasy.

Even though I don't remember anything else about that day, that memory sustained me through the hard times. And times were hard. Long hours in dark closets were passed remembering in perfect detail that event. It was one of the few times in history when no writer could come up with a more ideal scene.

When I walked in, tired from the day, I didn't bother to look around the annoyingly familiar room. But as I set down my books, she made some noise, a squeak on the bed of an agitated wiggle. I flipped around, and my breath caught in my throat. She looked like my every secret desire come to life. The top two buttons of her white polo were undone and her skirt had ridden up slightly on her crossed legs. My mouth went dry. She leaned back giving her breasts a chance to show off their perkiness.

I swallowed hard. "Hello Ginny." My brain would not move passed the fact that she was sitting on my bed, her hair pulled back in a simple bun with a few free, curly, strands and a half sweet half mischievous grin. Her eyes trailed over me, taking in my mussed hair and rumpled clothes. She stood and crossed the room in that slow sensual sway just for me.

And I'll never forget what she said, "I can't stand it, I can't stand it anymore." Her hands smoothed the sleeves of my shirt. "I love you Draco Malfoy."

Hard to imagine, finding your true love at fifteen, but I did. Of course I didn't know it then; I was too much of a child to know it. All I did know, all I could know, then was that a wonderful girl, a girl who could make me laugh and cry at the same time, a girl who meant more then the world to me, had just said she loved me. And I loved her back.

My life was bliss, or as blissful as possible. Ginny insisted on weekly meetings. She said it was so she could remember what I looked like, but I think she just wanted to get away from Potter. We had only one rule in our chosen Sanctuary: no prejudice, no judgment. Often though we saved the conversation for letters and spent our few precious hours reveling in each other's presence. Ours was not a particularly physical relationship, as I did not feel worthy. She often instigated any touching, but she was a lot of firsts for me. I was in love.

But as always, all good things mist come to an end. My father wrote to tell me two very important things. One, the Dark Lord had a plan for Harry Potter. He did not give the specifics, and I did not ask. If I did not know, then perhaps Ginny would forgive me. But then I got to the other half of the letter and to number two. I was to receive the Dark Mark.

It was the beginning of the end.

I did everything I could to ignore his mandate. Never did I mention his letter aloud or in a letter. Whenever his words crossed my mind I chose to think of Ginny instead. Perhaps if I shut my eyes long enough it would just go away. Such was not my luck.

The Dark Lord was the one topic Ginny and I did not talk about. It was as if we both knew where the line would be drawn and that it would go right between the two of us. And so I hid the knowledge of what my father wanted, hid it so deep within myself that no one ever guessed what might happen to me. It tore me apart to keep something from Ginny, but it was an act of self-preservation. If she left, I would die.

In the end, I could not hide it. In the end, I wrote to Ginny, confessed my heinous sin, and waited for her judgment. If I had been a smarter man, I would have told her while school was in session, when we both sat in our sanctuary. But I was not, and perhaps my hiding it was for the best.

That was the summer of waiting and hopeless dreams. Waiting for her judgment and for the Dark Mark, dreaming of acceptance, and dreaming of death. At the time I wrote the letter, I believed she would absolve me, and we would run away together to live happily ever after. When two days went by without an answer, I feared she had washed her hands of me. Perhaps it would have been better if she had.

Her letter read as follows:

Dear Draco, I fear for your safety alone in that house with your father. Leave Malfoy Manor! Write to Dumbledore and leave! I'm sure he will understand, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione will too you'll see! I'll talk to them for you. You can't stay there any longer. (Here she scribbled some things out.) Don't become a DeathEater! (Here showed signs of crying.) If you do, we won't be able to see each other anymore.

All My Love, Ginny.

You can see my problem. Or maybe you cannot, as I don't know who you are. For all I know it could be some noble headed Griffindor reading this. But if you are some loyal Slytherin, there is no need for you to read the rest of this paragraph; you already know the story. If I left for the Order, one of two things would happen. Either my father would hunt me down and kill me, or Harry Potter would hunt me down and kill me. Ron might have attempted it, but he would not have been very successful. Besides, father would want to know what caused me join the "Mudblood Lovers", the "Scum of Our World", the "Idiots", and then Ginny would have been in mortal peril. My prospects from either side were not very good; I could either lose my life or my love.

I wrote her one last letter, only three words long, All my love.

My father was pleased with my acceptance of fate. I was born into a DeathEater's family; it was a part of my heritage that I join the Dark Lord. Very rarely does one manage to break the mold they have lived in all their life. I did not have the courage or the stupidity to do so. He watched me often, as if deciding whether my meek demeanor in the home was a good sign. Most days he made some comment about the insanity of those who opposed the Dark Lord; he said they were all doomed. I did not always react as he might have liked. Sometimes my response was just a second to slow in coming, if it came at all. In then end, I just accepted his degradation of the one person I had learned to love, but I did not have to like it.

That was the bleakest time of my life, filled with despair and overwhelming darkness. It was the dark age of my life for the one good thing I had was forcibly given up—taken away. I sincerely hope that no one else is forced to experience the same heart wrenching loneliness that I experienced that summer. It would almost be better to have never gotten close to Ginevra Weasley. Almost.

It was a cruel play of fate.

I went back to Hogwarts with a completely new outlook for my sixth year. Gone was my desire to prove to everyone my superiority, no longer did I delight in tormenting my peers, and my life now mattered very little. In fact, I would have ended my life, if not for Ginny.

True, I was no longer in contact with her, and my actions had no real effect on her. She didn't smile or give a little nod towards me in the halls. We did not exchange letters, and I had to content myself with the memory of how she once loved me. I might not have been able to comfort her, but her happiness was still my purpose in life. For her I kept living. If I died (by my own hand or not), she would blame herself. And so I continued to live.

It was the worst year of my life. Potter was following my every move. My arm ached constantly. The Dark Lord had decreed that I kill Dumbledore. Snap kept accosting me in deserted hallways and classrooms. Slughorn wouldn't let me join his stupid little club. And Ginny was seeing other people.

Can you blame me for crying in bathrooms all across Hogwarts?

The rest of that story is well known by everyone. Undoubtedly you have read countless articles and possibly even heard a live rendition. Dumbledore died. Snape and I went into hiding. And Harry Potter killed Voldemort. It really need not be reiterated.

In that year of hiding, I ceased to be a child and adolescent. I was forced by circumstances to become a man and make adult decisions. If I had been a child I might have put my own foolish desires before the safety of my beloved. I had a job to do, and nothing was more important then that. Protecting Ginny Weasley cost me dearly; I lost my childhood, my family, and all my dreams for the future for her. And not one days goes by when I regret it. Her smile reminds me that my sacrifice was worth it, even if she is not smiling at me.

During that time, I learned a lot about myself and what deserves to be called important. The best thing in life is seeing you true love laugh and smile, seeing them enjoying life as life is meant to be. Not many find their love as quickly as I did, and in that I am truly beloved of fate.

If you, my unknown reader, learn anything from my experiences, learn this. Love is worth everything, even life.

It is now October fourteenth, three years after my birth. I have learned what it means to be a man, what is important, and how to protect what is important. Ginny is lost to me forever, but I can confront my father. He may have escaped the first ministry sweep for DeathEaters, but I will make sure he comes to justice.

This letter, my moment of melodrama, I hope you have found enlightening. I hope it has brought light to your life as Ginny Weasley's first note did for me. And I hope that you will now burn it so that it will never fall into the hands of my love, so that she will continue to live blissfully unaware of her affect on my life. If she knew, she would only blame herself.

Sincerely, Draco Malfoy.

Ginny Weasley looked up at Professor Slughorn, her eyes filled to the brim with unshed tears. He stared down at her only aware that she had not heard a word he had said in the last several minutes. Her hands shook causing the parchment in her hand to flap wildly against the desk. Everyone else could see she was just seconds away from bursting into tears.

"Miss Weasley, you are not to pass notes in my class!" He snatched it from her hands and read the salutation quickly.

She continued to look up at him, the tears now falling. "I found it, sir, on the floor, underneath a cauldron." She sniffed.

So there you go, the idea I couldn't get out of my head for at least the last six months. I just couldn't find a way to write it. What do you think? R&R!