Harry Potter and the Mystery Mate {Drarry}

Chapter 1: Draco Malfoy's Spelling, Story, and State of Affairs

A headache started to build as Draco clenched his eyes and started to spell words backwards in his head.

It was a tactic saved for when Draco wanted to distract himself.

Draco would look at an object, like this unnecessarily hard chair for example, and he'd start to spell it backwards, r...a...i...h...c. Lot's of times he'd make a mistake, would have to reconsider his spelling and fix it, r...i...a...h...c.

Spelling things backwards wasn't an easy task, it required focus. When Draco was spelling objects backwards, he was forced to focus on the spelling, and not on whatever it was he was trying not to think about.

Today, Draco was trying not to think about how he was going to die.

Draco was sitting in a room. It was a boring room as far as rooms went. Even calling the space a room was being generous. It was four slabs of concrete walls, a concrete floor with distinct blood stains and the smell of piss.

The chair that a wandless Draco had been thrust upon was hard enough to bruise. No matter how Draco squirmed, he was quite uncomfortable. Not that he could do much squirming with the handcuffs at his back and feet.

s...f...f...u...c...n...d....a....h

No.

s...f...f...u...c..d..n..a...h.

Through Draco kept his eyes resolutely closed and his brain painfully distracted, he could only block out so much of the world. His sense of smell was intact, allowing him to smell both the piss air and his own stench, a cause of weeks without a proper bath.

And closed eyes didn't block out pain. The bruises and nicks that peppered Draco's body. Most of the bruises were just a brownish green, and therefore not too bad, they just ached dully. His nicks didn't really hurt unless touched.

Draco could feel the tips of his creamy hair on the bridge of his nose. It had grown out in his time in captivity.

A slight flicker of pride sparked inside Draco at the messiness.

Draco had always naturally combed through his hair, when he was nervous, or even just when he was deep in thought. A habit that had been forcefully repressed by years of etiquette classes.

Years of Draco's long life had been spent looking in the mirror at a stiff posture, closed off facial features, and rock hard hair, feeling like a shell of a man.

Draco was sure that he had once been a person, with personality traits and quirks that made Draco him.

But Draco had kept the sinking feeling that he wasn't a person, for awhile.

Anything unique about Draco had been scrubbed off long ago. He had been bred to fit this ideal. To be this classic, boring, standard pureblood heir.

The person he had been trained to be, was no different from any other pureblood heir. Draco was one of many identical pieces.

No individual thoughts, no individual characteristics, no personal traits. He was unoriginal.

Draco absolutely hated it.

He hadn't at first, of course. When it had all started, Draco had been too young to truly understand what was beginning.

It wasn't till he was years older and at Hogwarts that he realized how in-genuine his personality was. How he wasn't a person, just a hollow sculpture.

It was during his third year, after years of watching his rival and the boy's friend group, that Draco realized that they were all different.

One was into books, one was into sports, and the third...well Draco wasn't entirely sure what he was into. Treacle tart? Broomsticks? Almost killing Draco?