Dedication to my very first fan on wattpad :)
i hope you like this.... Also dedicated to AmethystRose, my second fan... i tried to dedicate it to both, but it didnt work... thank you so much guys! :)
He moved quickly through the passages, but quietly. His feet made no noise as he glided down the steps towards the library. The view of the library from the wide sweeping stairs was an impressive one, with bookshelves over three stories in height, but he paid no heed to it as he walked down, immersed as he was in his own thoughts. It was a place he visited often, plagued as he was by insomnia. The entire Manor was pitch black, but he preferred it that way. There was a certain comfort that existed in pure solitude, comfort that was missing in the bustling lanes of London or under the high ceilings of the manors he was forced to visit due to his social obligations. Man was said to a social animal, but Draco Malfoy was more than willing to live the life of a hermit. The loud bustle of people and the constant level of noise that accompanied any gathering was not something he ever pursued or desired.
He had never truly connected with any person in his life, except one. Somehow every person he had net either wanted to know him for his name or his wealth. Others sought him for the reflected power they got from being around him. The Malfoy name, though bruised during the War, was one that still commanded respect in Wizarding society. His father had always flaunted the status that came from being a descendent of such an old and powerful family, but he was not his father. Though with his blonde hair and grey eyes he was a spitting image of his father, all similarities ended there. Their personalities couldn’t have been more different, his father’s obsession with money and power was something he did not share. His mother too was someone he could never connect with. As caring as she had been, she was always wary of showing too much affection to him. She didn’t want to make him soft, and she had succeeded. He had built an icy cage in his heart, one that shut him off from the rest of the world, and one that made him feel more machine than man.
The cage around his heart was not one that could be melted or shattered. His life had never been easy, even as a child. Though the people sympathised with the Chosen One, and spoke derisively of him, no one knew the pitiful lie he had growing up. Yes, his life had been full of comforts and there never was a material desire of his that was unfulfilled, there was a glaring absence of warmth and laughter in his childhood. His parents deemed any external form of affection crass and ‘pedestrian’; it was not the Malfoy’s way to cuddle with their children or to tuck them in at night. Any nightmares he had at night he had to wipe away his tears himself. And his Hogwarts life was even harder. His father had been unable to accept that a muggleborn could be better than his son, and he had spent summers with expensive tutors learning from dawn to dusk. He was doing the best he could, but that was never enough for his father. As a result of this, he vented his frustration at the source of all his problems – the muggleborn who always did better than him. Endlessly teasing and tormenting her first started as a result of the unrealistic expectations of his father, but soon became a part of him. He looked forward to doing verbal battle with her, as she would never back down from him. For the first time in his life here was a person who couldn’t care less about him. For a person who had always been sought out, this was a startling, yet not unpleasant change.
Somehow, her blatantly obvious hatred and disdain for him only spurred him, instead of turning him away. He started to chase her, even if it was only to direct barbs her way. The way she retaliated each time made him have to conceal a smile. But slowly, every glare of hers started to sting. It hurt to see her glaring so ferociously his way, and too late he admitted his feelings to himself. Each and every slur he had ever directed her way began to drum a constant tattoo on his brain.
He was always watching. He began to feel the first twinges of jealousy he had ever felt in his life when he saw her direct gentle smiles and laughter towards her red headed friend – smiles which he wished he could receive. And then he would mentally scold himself – firstly, Malfoy’s were not caring and secondly, he was entertaining an impossible situation in his head, one that would only hurt him more the longer he continued it. But he found it hard to stop. It is not so easy to let go of people. So he continued to watch her from a distance as she watched Weasley, who was completely oblivious to her feelings. That year had been exceptionally difficult too; as that was the year he had to kill Dumbledore. He pushed himself into his task – a task he hated – to avoid going about the same things in his head but it was nigh impossible. At the very last moment he chickened out, but before he could grasp the lifeline being thrown to him by Dumbledore, Snape burst in and murdered the man in front of his very own eyes. His heart broke as he saw the very last chance of ever escaping this wretched life of his fall off the Astronomy Tower.
