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Chapter 2) Numb

I'm tired of being what you want me to be

Feeling so faithless

Lost under the surface

I don't know what you're expecting of me

Put under the pressure

Of walking in your shoes

Every step that I take is another mistake to you

I've become so numb

I can't feel you there

Become so tired

So much more aware

I'm becoming this

All I want to do

Is be more like me

And be less like you

But I know I may end up failing too

But I know

You were just like me

With someone disappointed in you

Granger found out, yet unusually for her she didn't run straight to McGonagall or even Potter. It was still a fear at the back of my mind though, to add to my numerous others. What if the Dark Lord found out that I had been careless enough to let her see? Would I again be punished or worse, would he make good on his threat to harm my mother? Of course he had also threatened to hurt my father but that did not rouse the same result in me. Lucius is not the sort of man you can love. I looked up to him and envied him, how could I not, all that power and fame. I wanted to be just like him. Until, that is, I realised that his life wasn't just people grovelling to him, It was him grovelling to a half blood madman. I'm not exactly sure when it was I decided I didn't want to be like him Maybe it was when he began hitting my mother. He was always knocking me about, had been since I was a child so I was fairly used to it, but to see him bruise my beautiful mother and make her cry and bleed, it caused such deep feelings of loathing that before I knew it I hated him. And when I realised I was just being punished for my father's actions that was when I made the vowed never to be like him, I would never make the same mistakes. In a way it meant I was finally free from him. I no longer had to worry that I might fail or disappoint him because by now I frankly didn't give a shit what he thought of me.

Granger. Pretty ironic that she was the one to give me so much help that year albeit unbeknownst. It was her that gave me the idea not only for the poisoned mead but also the enchanted coins to contact Rosmerta, my imperious victim. I would have loved to tell her, just to see her horrified expression. She is the most open person I know. You can always know what she's thinking and feeling cause it is shown as though written in bold letters across her face. She'd have made an awful Death Eater, or pureblood for that matter.

Thinking of mudblood Granger makes me remember the day Potter slashed me open with that damn curse of his. I always wondered why she came to visit me in the hospital wing. It must have been late at night cause it was dark and there was no one else around. It was her coming in that woke me up. She sat in the chair beside my bed and just watched me. I stared back at her through half closed eyes so she wouldn't see I was awake. After looking at me silently for about fifteen or so minutes she got up and left. Weird, though then again she is a mudblood and wouldn't have been taught proper etiquette and manners. I don't expect to ever see her again but if I do, I'll be sure to ask her about it.

Why is the pain coming back? Typical as soon as a resign myself to dying I find myself being dragged back to consciousness. Why won't he just let me die, I want to die. I don't want this anymore. I don't want this life. I want my freedom back.

"Healer Praxos there's some people here to see you." The pretty young healer knocked on the doorframe to get her bosses attention.

"Right you are Maire, send them in."

Marie turned and nodded to Hermione who was hovering anxiously behind her. Thanking her, Hermione waved to get Harry and Ron's attention from where they sat on the bench further down the corridor. Both young men jumped to their feet and hastily made their way to join her. Hardly able to keep the excited smile from her lips she turned and entered the office of Ambrogio Praxos last descendent of Rowena Ravenclaw.

By the end I didn't care. By the end I was ground down so far nothing mattered. I had become ill, perhaps one of the after effects of Potter's curse, perhaps just due to my increasingly poor diet and sleeping pattens, and I was in a constant state of feverishness. It was a miracle and also pure accident that I actually succeeded in mending the damn cabinet. After that it all went downhill, far faster than even I its perpetrator had expected. Twelve hours later I would be standing on the astronomy tower with an unarmed and weak old man at my mercy, being told I wasn't a killer.

Draco, Draco, you're not a killer

Something in me snapped. Dumbledore talked to me in a way that no adult ever had before. I wasn't the unwanted growth of the despised Lucius Malfoy. I wasn't the pawn of Voldemort. Even my mother has never spoken to me with me the way he did that night, as though I was an equal. As though I was his equal, the greatest wizard of our time. I made the decision right there and then to go over to the orders side, despite their muggle loving views. Anything was better than that. Anything is better than this. This hell I am living through even now.

Oh Merlin the pain. I can hear screaming from somewhere, a long way off. Maybe the dark lord is torturing someone else. People are calling out in the distance. The pain grows sharper and sharper then suddenly blissfully its gone.

The three exited the office fifteen minutes later in considerably lower spirits. The only person who could have known of any artefacts of Ravenclaw's had informed them with fatherly patience that there were no surviving artefacts of Ravenclaw's left in the world.

"Well we mustn't lose heart." Hermione said staunchly as they wandered towards the main foyer. "I mean I'm sure there's plenty of other leads we can go on. I can't quite think of any at the moment but I'm sure something will come to me. It's not the end of the world. I mean sure it puts us back a few steps but…" She stopped as she realised she was babbling. Stealing a glance at the boys to see if they'd noticed she saw neither was even looking at her, instead both were staring at something behind her, in the foyer. Hermione turned back around just in time to jump out of the way of a trainee healer who went rushing past them calling for Healer Praxos.

"Voldemort?" She muttered to Harry who gave a noncommittal shrug. The look in his eyes was answer enough though. Almost against their will the three of them moved towards the crowd of healers.

"…found him outside…thought he was dead…is it, do you think…"

A terrified looking man was bouncing from one foot to the other and not seeming to realise no one was paying him the slightest bit of attention. Healer Praxos hurried past them and began forcing the crowd of patients, visitors and staff alike back and for a brief second giving the young trio a clear view of the person lying on the floor.

"Malfoy."