He walks alone though the halls, his posture slouched, hands shoved into trousers worn with use. He keeps his head up with his last bit of defiance, refuses to flinch or look away from those people who are entirely justified in their hate for him. His hair wants cutting, his shoes are scuffed and dirty. His thin t-shirt does not cover the twisted black tattoo on his left forearm and he smiles in grim satisfaction as people shy away from it and him.
His students are afraid of him and he is afraid of himself. He teaches them how to defend themselves against people like him. Evil people. Death Eaters. He does not like it nor does he dislike it. It is something to pass the time in days grown far too long. He has her to thank for it. It is because of her that he's not rotting away in a prison cell in Azkaban. She fears him too now.
x
"Can anyone tell me what this is?" Draco points to the ugly tattoo on his forearm. Some of them do not know, he sees. Their faces are open, curious. Probably Mudbloods, he thinks. The rest are afraid and their fear rises from them, strong and palpable.
No one volunteers. He calls on a boy in the back looking resolutely at the floor.
"It's the Dark Mark," the boy mutters, looking anywhere but the front of the classroom.
"And what does that mean?"
The boy looks up finally and his eyes are full of hate. "That means you're Death Eater scum."
Draco smiles in a resigned manner. "That's right. Now who here knows someone killed by Death Eaters?"
The Mudbloods do not raise their hands, starting to look afraid. The rest do.
Evil exists in this world, he says.
"I'm looking at it," says the boy.
Draco does not deny it.
x
She visits him every week. He would go crazy otherwise, he suspected. He doesn't care if it's only out of pity. He'll take what he can get. She is thinner now, her complexion pallid. Her freckles have all but disappeared and he mourns their loss. He knows this transformation is his fault. He doesn't deserve her kindness; he doesn't deserve anything from her. He deserves to be locked away in Azkaban.
Get the Weasley girl, his Lord had said. And so he had. It had not been easy; nothing about her was easy. She hadn't trusted him, not one bit, and treaded as carefully around him as she would on broken glass. But he had fed her a steady diet of secrets and jokes and lingering touches, and she had fallen prey to a universal weakness of women: the belief that a bad man can be reformed.
Draco had dated many beautiful women in his life. Charming, clever, witty women. Oh Ginny was certainly beautiful, all that red, red hair coiling about her shoulders and a body lean from long hours of Quidditch practice. She was smart, yes, and funny in her own way, and she had an unpretentious sort of charm. But she was unlike any girl, anyone really, that he'd ever met. He had grown up in a world full of lies and games, where each remark was calculated and friends and lovers used each other as a stepping stool to better things. Ginny was straight with him in a way that no one had ever been. She had trusted him like no one ever had or would again and she had loved him without a price attached..
He does not remember when he stopped pretending to like her, but he remembers the first time they kissed, how he had felt like a man drowning. He remembers the feel of her curled up beside him, her easy smiles and how her hand always seemed to find its way into his. He remembers that last winter, how she'd whirled about in delight in the first snowfall with her face upturned and hands outstretched to feel the music in the snowflakes, how she'd pulled him down beside her to make angels in the snow.
He remembers that endless moment when she figured out he'd betrayed her brother to the Dark Lord. He wishes he could erase the memory of the look she'd given him - heartbreak and grief and condemnation in eyes that had always been full of laughter and hope - how she'd scooted out of the circle of his arms so fast she'd fallen. He wishes he could forget that when he was with her everything had seemed right in the world.
He remembers the first time he heard her laugh. It was full and throaty and so carefree, expressing a joy entirely at odds with the world crumbling around her. He wishes he could've bottled that sound. She does not laugh anymore.