The Color Yellow ~ Blaise Zabini

fourteen

Draco Malfoy paced The Room Of Hidden Things. He pulled at his platinum hair like a madman as tears poured from his eyes. He stood before the vanishing cabinet with his puffy, crying eyes and all he wanted was for it to end. Draco just wanted it to be over, all of the voices swirling in his mind. Voices of his father, his aunt, Voldemort, and all the others, telling him it was his duty. Voices telling him to obey and be a "good boy". He shivered at the thought of the Dark Lord caressing his face and telling him to fulfill his duty.

He just prayed for this all to end.

The blond had so much dread in his heart with every new day. He was being pulled and tugged in two very different directions and he wanted them both. His soul could feel the strain and Draco didn't know how he could possibly take more.

People knew him one way and he despised the image of him they had created. His peers saw him as an arrogant, traditionalist who cared for little more than his own well-being. They crafted an image of him that scorned anyone and everyone different from him. Draco hated it. However what he hated most was that the picture they held of him was painted by himself. Draco had spent years being controlled by his father, a man he once admired but now loathed, and Draco had constructed a lovely little facade upon his father's wishes. He spent so much of his time naively painting a masque that portrayed him in just the way his father pleased.

Draco was coward and he was arrogant and he was so many things. But he was only a coward when it came to the important things. He was only arrogant to conceal all of his insecurity. He was only a monster because he was bred to be.

Maybe Draco is all of those things but those things are not who he is. Draco was a scared little boy, trapped in a vicious cycle.

He loved his mother and she deserved more than she would ever receive from anyone. So when his mother would becon, he would go, no matter what. The logical side of him knew that she was also a puppet to his father and ultimately the Dark Lord, but his heart always won and he followed every word his mother spoke. Draco also loved his friends, though, and wanted nothing more than to see them happy.

His loves were pulling him opposite ways and he was one tug away from cracking.

Draco fell to the ground in a shutter of sobs. He dared not think of how he must appear at the moment; his hair a mess, eyes puffy and red from tears, his robes as messy as Potter's on any given day.

And that brought him full circle: Potter. He should have know Harry bleeding Potter would suddenly decide to be his friend. That was all Draco had ever wanted, but now it was not enough.

The raven haired Gryffindor made Draco lose what fragile grip he had on sanity. Harry made Draco's heart race frantically as if any moment it would leap out of his chest and find Harry's. He made Draco want to scream and yell and punch the nearest wall. Harry made Draco want to be good and kind and all that Hufflepuff-y stuff. He made Draco's skin itch and ache as if something were trying desperately to crawl it way out from within him.

Draco was seriously damaged and all Harry Potter did was throw him against the wall again and again until he was completely broken. He knew Harry meant well, he knew that to any normal human how Harry was would be lovely, but Draco was not normal. So even though Draco was quite possibly falling in love, he was also falling into an abyss.

Someone once told him that all he had to do was outrun the demons, but what they didn't ever tell him was what to do when you are one.

With that he raised his wand to his temple pulled out a memory and prayed on last time that everything would turn out fine, for Harry.

Draco never saw anything as green as the light from his wand.

A.N. I️ am actually very sorry for this. I'm legit crying right now, it hurts oh my word.