Wrinkles in Life

Chapter One

       Draco Malfoy had always been enraptured by makeup. Every time someone put on makeup in front of him, he couldn't help but secretly stare. He longed to see the colours on him and see how his skin would change from its colourless pallor and wake up. That's why he would stay with his mother while she put on blush and why he would sometimes offer to hold Pansy's compact as she reapplied her mascara. Narcissa thought Draco just enjoyed her company, but the way her brush swept across her cheek was the main reason why. Pansy thought for years that Draco was secretly in love with her and didn't know how to show it, it was actually because he was secretly in love with the way lashes would elegantly darken with the stroke of a mascara brush.

      The first time Draco had tried makeup had been the summer before sixth year. He had just been forced to get the Dark Mark and swear his loyalty to He Who Must Not Be Named by his father, and had spent the last hour crying in his parent's room while they were out in a meeting. For the first time in Draco's life, he had felt truly ugly. He spotted his mother's vanity, and it was just there. He slowly walked up to the table and sat down on the gold chair. The blonde looked at himself and his tear streaked face, the malicious black skull staring at him. He quickly pulled down his sweater to hide the judgemental reminder that there was no turning back now, not that he had ever had much choice in the matter in the first place. Draco's eyes kept on flitting back to the tube of red lipstick he had been eyeing from across the room before. It was a new tube in his mother's favourite colour and the Slytherin had seen her apply it a million times. She had once told her husband that it "makes her feel even more beautiful." Narcissa had said it was an art form that could help transform one's insecurities into a footnote and amplify confidence. Draco needed some of that right now.

      With trembling hands, he picked up the lipstick and uncapped the black tube. The bright red stared up at him and Draco drifted towards it like he was under a spell. He touched the surface with the pad of his finger and surveyed the red against his pale skin. It was a shock of colour that reminded him of the roses in the manor garden in the winter, a brilliant red against the white snow.

       Beautiful, he thought. Draco brought the lipstick to his bottom lip and began to apply it carefully. When he finished, he noticed his hands were no longer shaking. He looked beautiful and Draco couldn't help the smile that grew on his face. He felt as light and bright as the lipstick itself. Laughter burst from his red lips and it was the kind of laughter that happened when people felt free and happy and fulfilled. Draco felt whole. His entire life, he had had a void, you could say. A void that was then filled with insecurities shoved in by his father's expectations and prejudices. Just like twisting the tube had pushed the lipstick out, putting it on had pushed out those insecurities and replaced them with the lovely red colour he was admiring in the mirror. But when you push those insecurities outside of a void you never acknowledged, you realize that there was a void. Those insecurities are out in the open now and they are staring you in the eyes. Draco's face in the mirror was joined by Lucius Malfoy.

      "You are not my son, you are a disgrace," the face snarled. Draco started trembling again but still gripped onto the tube of lipstick. Then came the faces of Hogwarts students, sneering about how ridiculous he looked. Insults were hurled viciously at him by his family, his friends, everyone in the world.

      Draco started crying and quickly stood back from the vanity, knocking Narcissa's gold chair to the ground. The sound seemed to echo around his head, momentarily clearing away the gleeful jabs of his demons. A tear splashed onto his hand and he looked down at the lipstick. The edge of it was pointed back at him as if accusing him. The shaking boy quickly capped it and set it down on the table.

      "Master Draco?" a house elf asked from outside the door.

      "Leave me!" he yelled. Draco took a deep breath, hastily wiping away his tears and lipstick, and setting back the chair. He looked at himself in the mirror and turned, desperate to leave. Draco could see the red on the sleeve of his sweater as he reached for the doorknob and stopped. He was scared and wanted to say that he was confused, but he wasn't. This felt right to him. It was like finally finding the final wrinkle in a crisp, white shirt and ironing it out. Draco turned around again to stuff the lipstick into his pant pocket before making a hasty exit back to his room with a small, secret smile on his face.