AN

So college let out for the summer, and I decided I had some free time...and I finished Chapter One! Yay! Now we have more than a sorry Prologue XD

This is the poem the story is based on, and then, of course, the first chapter to Trials and Tribulations of a Pure Blood. As of right now, I am back and working on this story. Sadly, my other project, I will not be continuing (for Yu Yu Hakusho). And after this, I will be working on original stories, unless I become particularly inspired to write another fanfiction.

Here goes, and don't forget, the trailer for this story can be found on YouTube.

Farewell to Van Gogh

The quiet deepens. You will not persuade

one leaf of the accomplished, steady darkening

chest-nut tower to displace itself.

With more of violence than the air supplies

when, gathering dusk, the pond brims evenly

and we must be content with stillness.

Unhastening, daylight withdraws from us its shapes

into their central calm. Stone by Stone

your rhetoric is dispersed until the earth

becomes once more the earth, the leaves

a sharp petition against cooling blue.

Farwell, and for your instructive frenzy,

gratitude. The world does not end tonight

and the fruit that we shall pick tomorrow

awaits us, weighing the unstripped bough.

I had always had a deep fondness for Draco Malfoy. When I was younger, and my parents had fancied us to be married one day, both of us had blushed and turned our heads shyly aside. Yet as I've grown older, and closer to him, my head has turned toward the idea. I know he loved me once…Before everything fell apart around us….before the world turned to dust.

I wish I could talk to him, to say anything to him. He always seemed content with speaking, and for the longest time, I was content with listening. Yet nothing could ever grow from such silence, save for friendship. And that is why, I feel, I am losing him to Pansy.

We are evenly matched in all aspects of the importance that Draco finds in a partner. We both get decent grades, we both have pride for our Pure-Blood heritage… yet she does have one thing that I do not possess. She has the ability to speak.

At first, it was my own conscious choice not to speak. Anyone would believe that the instant I realized I was losing the one thing left to me that was dearest, Draco, I would have spoken for an eternity. To this day, I wish I could speak, to do or say anything that could bring him back to me…. But there is nothing. My body is too far broken.

For the past year and a half, I stayed awake at night trying to formulate a word, any word. I wholeheartedly believed that if I just said anything, he would come spiraling back into my arms. But then she came along. Pansy Parkinson.

She was absurd, ridiculous, and utterly annoying since the day Draco and I were sorted into Slytherin. We had both found her extremely irksome, and would often amuse ourselves by avoiding her, and poking fun at her behind her back. As my silence grew stronger, her irritating ways seemed to even out… By the middle of our third year, her presence was welcomed in everything that we did.

Hogsmeade was no longer just about Draco and me. It was Draco, Pansy and me. Then, Draco, Pansy, Blaise and me.

Though he might deny it to the end of time, there was no disputing the feeling that was ever so slowly growing inside of me. I was being replaced by her. I had known it. She even knew it, and took sick pleasure in rubbing it in my face whenever Draco was not present.

Of course, she would pretend to be my friend when he was around. She would fake being kind to me, and he was always so thrilled to be around two girls that got along so well with him and with each other. She was perfect, in his eyes. Someone who sucked up to him, made him feel as though he were the most important being in the world, and someone who was friendly with someone he cared about.

He never witnessed the dirty looks or triumphant smirks she would give me when he was hunched over his homework in the common room.

I had hoped that this year might be different, that I might be able to overcome my silence and learn to speak again…However the news my godfather presented to me the other day has surely smashed any chance of this.

My mother is receiving a parole hearing within the coming months. She killed my father, and she would be after me if I had taken after his 'inferior' ways in her absence. Mr. Malfoy assured me that the only way I would be safe from her is if I were to join the Death Eaters.

I am currently enlisted in a force behind a cause that I do not agree with. Proud though I am of my Pure-Blood heritage and status, I do not view Muggle-borns and Half-Bloods with any disdain. If they prove their worth in magic, they should receive the same rights and privileges as anyone.

Sometime closer to winter, I will be made to attend an official meeting. Mr. Malfoy has even warned me that I might be subjected to a private conference with the Dark Lord.

Surely, these aren't the sorts of things I need on my mind with the approach of this school year.

We had arrived at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters with time to spare. Draco, in an attempt to escape from the cooings and fussing-overs from his mother, launched himself into the train. I followed behind, faithfully as always. He began to make his way to the front of the train, which confused me. We always moved toward the back when we got onto the train.

After traveling through a few cars, he seemed to realize that I was tailing behind him.

He stopped abruptly, and I would have crashed into him if it weren't for the fact that he had been able to turn and catch me. After righting me, he threw me a puzzled look.

"Indigo, what are you doing?" He asked.

I gestured to him, indicating that I had been following him.

His hand moved down to his cloak, and he flashed his Prefect's badge at me.

This badge would prove as our division for the year.

I couldn't believe that I had forgotten that Draco had made Prefect. He had been boasting about it ever since he got it, not to mention the excited letter I had been endured to sit through from Pansy.

What killed me most was that I would have received the badge, were I able to speak. Silence was a poor means of keeping order. Hardly anyone would listen to a mute, as ironic as that statement appears.

But Pansy had made it in my stead. And she would abuse the privileges to the core. And she would have yet another excuse to be even closer to Draco. And another way to rub it in my face.

"I'm sorry. All the Prefects have to go to a meeting for the first half of the train ride. I'll come and sit with you when it's done."

I nodded slightly and turned down the aisle, not wanting to risk further embarrassment.

I always felt that I was a sort of a nuisance to Draco. That everywhere we went, he had to apologize to others for my silence. It were as though he saw me as disabled. Yet I was neither mentally nor physically handicapped. Rather, I was traumatized. To have been through what I had at such a young age… It was horror, sheer and true. The nurses at Saint Mungo's all spoke of my amazing feat, that is, to be free from the confines of a psychiatric ward. It's not every day, after all, that your own mother would try to kill you.

The train ride to Hogwarts every year reminded me of the last time I had ever seen my father. He was standing on that platform, waving. Seeing me off just like every other proud parent. He thought he'd see me to the end. That I'd become a great auror, or some sort of politician. He thought he would be back on that platform, waiting for me with open arms when my seventh year finished. Yet I would not return to him. I merely retained this foster family, a shell of all that I had.

I began to become worried, as I made my way to the back of the train. For normally it was Draco I sat with. Draco who comforted me on this ride. Draco who removed my mind to a much more serene place. I had not a clue as to who I would sit with on this terrible journey…and the options couldn't seem clearer.

As I made my way past the spot on which I had entered the train with Draco, I caught a glimpse of Harry Potter.

He seemed to be having the same trouble I was. Ron and Hermione stood before him, gesturing to the front of the train. Harry threw them a brave smile, one that I, as well as they, could see right through. Turning quickly, they made their way past me, Hermione giving me a friendly smile, and Ron patting my shoulder as he walked by.

Cautiously, I approached Harry. It reminded me so much of the time he had first approached me, the day after winter holiday had ended, and word had spread of the travesty that had befallen my life. I had been so much more weak and frail then. I am a Spartan warrior now compared to what I was then. Anyone besides Draco who so much as came near me frightened me. I trembled before professors, who grunted and tutted at such a change in my demeanor.

But then there had been Harry Potter, and with him, a sort of salvation in its own right. For he, of all the people in the Great Hall, could understand me. As an infant, his parents had been killed before his very eyes, by the greatest of all Death Eaters, no less. And though he could not remember, it did not make it any less painful for him. He had placed his hand on my shoulder, and I remember it was so warm against the coldness of the Slytherin's around me.

"Indigo, I don't speak with you much," he began. I could tell it made him uncomfortable to be so near me, someone from his rival house. "But I wanted you to know that I am sorry for what has happened to you."

"Oh, shut it, Potter! Why don't you search for sympathy somewhere else?" Draco belted. He was very defensive of me at that time. Perhaps overly defensive. I had become so accustomed to his fighting my battles for me, that when Pansy barged into my life, I was unprepared. I was like a baby, left to myself much too soon. But Harry understood this pain, and he retired to the Gryffindor table. Draco would never know that I secretly interacted with him. Him, as well as his friends Ron and Hermione, who opened up to me.

Hermione took to me right away. She communicated with me second best to Draco. She knew just when to fetch a quill and ink, and was, in no time at all, able to read my expressions and determine my thoughts and feelings. My eyes were the window to my soul, a painting on a canvas that only Hermione could see. Ron, admittedly, was frightened and put off at the prospect of interacting with a Slytherin. But that is the politics of the wizarding world. Our fathers, I knew, had some sort of respect for each other. They had worked with each other. And I feel that it was this that allowed Ron to open up to me in the end.

Harry watched me now as I walked to him. Gently, I placed my hand on his forearm. My special way of telling him I could relate to what he was going through.

"You too, huh?" He asked. He looked positively glum. My heart almost ached to see him so affected.

I nodded, and gestured to the back of the car, suggesting we sit near each other. Harry also nodded, yet before we were able to make our way to find seats, we were suddenly joined by Neville Longbottom. He was carrying some strange plant with him. I couldn't be bothered to care what it actually was. I was too lost in my own thoughts.

Neville was, indeed, a lovely person. I knew both his parents were lost to him as well. But there was just something about him that caused minor calamity to follow him in his wake. Heaven forbid that when we sat down the luggage rack would crash down on us, or worse, the train would derail itself. He was a lovely boy, but one can only wonder how many ladders he walked under as a toddler.

It wasn't long before our searching trio gained another member. Ginny Weasley. I realized the extra company would be a great comfort to Harry, and did my best to swallow it in. I was not the social creature I had once been. Years ago, I would have delighted to be surrounded by such a crowd of people, Gryffindors or otherwise. Now, I find myself wary.

As our search for a place to sit came to a close, we found that nearly all were occupied. In the end we found ourselves standing outside the most empty car. There was a single person seated here. She had long blonde hair, and was reading a magazine upside down. Squinting my eyes, I tried to concentrate hard on where I knew her from.

"Oh, no!" Ginny moaned, stepping back quickly. "Loony Luna's in there! I'm not going in that car."

"Yeah, she's batty." Neville mumbled quietly.

Oh, yes. Luna Lovegood. Loony Luna Lovegood. I have heard quite a great deal of things about that girl. And witnessed nearly as much. Her father worked for the Quibbler, which I would assume was the magazine in her hands. I was no one to judge, but from what I could gather, the entire thing was a load of bollocks. I wouldn't dare say that out loud, however. Well, not that I could.

"I'm sure she's not that bad." Harry said as he slid open the door to the car. I watched as Ginny and Neville visibly stiffened. "Do you mind if we join you here?" He called, leaning his head in. Luna made no civil move to invite us all in. Rather, she began to go off on a tangent about minding something being the product of magwamples.

Harry took that to be as good as a yes, and gestured for us all to follow in. I was close behind him, where the others were much more hesitant. The instant my three companions began to make conversation amongst themselves, she began to butt in with nonsensical facts and outrageous statements. I couldn't stand to listen to any of it. I figured my safest bet would be to try to rest on the train. After all, I had a long year ahead of me.

I jolted upright to the most fierce pounding I had ever heard in my life. Checking my surroundings, I saw that quite a bit had changed. We were now joined by Ron and Hermione. There was a terrible sound that slightly resembled laughter emanating from Luna. Her eyes were wide open, staring directly at Ron. Her face was turning red, and the strange sound persisted. Though this was not the source of the pounding, which made itself apparent yet again.

All heads, save for Luna's, turned to the door of the car. Draco stood there with one fist on the glass, Pansy next to him, both her hands on her hip. The second he realized he had my attention, he swung the door open.

"Indigo, what are you doing in here with Mud-Bloods and Blood Traitors?" I hated those words. They were terrible, despicable things to say. Despicable things to call someone. What I hated more was that someone I held so dear had said them. I knew Draco was not this prejudiced monster that the world had made him.

"Yes, Indigo. Come along." Pansy said. My eyes flicked to her for the briefest of seconds. Though I could not speak to defend myself, I certainly would not stand to being commanded to and fro like some sort of dog. Although I did not get caught in the politics of the wizarding world, my family's bloodline was stronger and older than hers. It was extremely uncalled for to have her address me in such a manner, Prefect or not.

Draco understood this mistake almost as soon as it had been made. With one arm, he swept her down the aisle, away from my sight.

"You have no right to tell her where to sit." Ginny declared, standing.

"I'm the closest thing to family she has in this place. I have every right." Draco's voice possessed nothing but the condescending tone he had purposely equipped. Their noses were practically touching, their venoms almost exchanged between them.

Despite what they might be, they were still my friends. I didn't want any sort of trouble for anyone, not this early in the school year. It would be best, I decided, to just leave and follow faithfully behind Draco as I have always done. Standing, I made my way out of the car. Turning back, I saw every detail of the offense they had taken in response to Draco. I could not blame them. I gave them a slight wave, which was returned to me. Harry did his best to give me that brave smile.

Things would even out one day.

I can't recall ever having been angry with Draco, but if any emotions were to come close to that feeling, the ones I possessed now would certainly be it. Despite his views towards Muggle borns, there was a manner of common decency that any witch or wizard should abide by.

"Come along then. Blaise has purchased all the Chocolate Frogs from the trolley, and we're going to need everyone to finish them all."

I stopped in my tracks and crossed my arms. It didn't take Draco very long to realize his shadow was no longer behind him. He spun on his heel and, seeing the look on my face, placed both hands on my shoulders. Though I could not speak, he could see everything that I was saying.

"I'm sorry. I know they're your friends. But I really can't understand why you would resort to degrading yourself that way. Whatever makes you happy, but suit yourself, really. I personally would not be caught dead associating with those types of people."

With a disgusted snort, I pushed him away from me. It pained me to see all of Draco's faults. How could someone so beautiful, so young, be such a bigot. One could hardly believe this was the same boy I used to race with on toy brooms as a child. I sometimes thought that these harsh times had been even tougher on Draco, than myself. He, who had everything, and I who had nothing.

Draco grabbed me and pulled me back to him.

"Indigo, wait. I'm sorry. I do try to be civil when you're around. Really I do. But it's just so hard. I have beliefs. I have beliefs just as you have beliefs. And mine are just as unshakeable. Do you realize how hard it is to convince Pansy that you're not a Blood Traitor? The way you carry on with that lot, she suspects it, you know."

I could give a damn what Pansy Parkinson, and the likes of her, thought of me. If I cared to consort with Harry Potter and his friends, then that was my choice. It was no indication of my personality, nor my character.

"I know," Draco said quietly, pulling me toward him. "I know how you really are Indigo. And I know you can't defend yourself. That's why I worry about you so much. You're the one closest to me. And I can't bear to see you hurt."

I would be hurt regardless of the things that Pansy says behind my back. She is, in every sense of the word, a snake. And her coiled grip over Draco grew more and more apparent every day. It was a matter of time before she sunk her teeth into him, and he was swallowed whole.

But until that day came, I could not deny that Draco was my friend. He was the one closest to me, also. He was my life, my home, everything. I couldn't let him slip away from me so easily, not for the arrogance of his mind. Though, as I allowed him to embrace me, I silently vowed to myself that I would one day make this change.

I would let him think that his words had melted me this time, as they quite often do. I knew full well that this was not the case. Today would always be within the back of my mind. And when the time came when I would lose Draco to Pansy, this would help sever the connection. It would help me lose him peacefully and quietly to the devil in a dress.

Eagerly, he pulled me along to the front of the train. Gryffindors faded to Hufflepuffs, Hufflepuffs mixed with Ravenclaws and caught us in a wave of blue. Finally, we were surrounded by that familiar green and black. It was almost like being in my own room at Malfoy Manor. For while these colors comforted me, and assured me a definite safety, deep down I could not help but feel they were far from my own. Was my soul truly green and black? Could it not also be red and gold?

The Sorting Hat is never wrong. Or so they say. Who am I to doubt the supernatural, when to some my entire existence is seemingly supernatural. Who is to say who is a freak? Some people exist without ever seeing a glint of magic. Those who have grown to be familiar with it their entire lives are dwindling in their number. Soon, we shall die out, and these so called impurities shall come to repopulate the world we created.