Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Weight of Choice ❯ Weigh Me Down ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Draco remorses and thinks about Lucius' effects on his life late at night. It's not the first time, but maybe it'll be the last? [ I wrote this before the sixth book came out I believe. ]

Non Anime: Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Drama | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 11.24.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.5K | Visits: 533 | Status: Completed

The Weight of Choice

On nights when he couldn't sleep, Draco Malfoy would sit up in his dormitory bed and look out the window until the sunlight crept over the horizon waking up his roommates then go down to breakfast with them, laughing and making jokes and no one had thought the wiser of it. Throughout the year, several times would rise where the blonde headed Slytherin couldn't sleep no matter how much he tossed and turned. And one of those nights was tonight, probably because he had exams coming up, probably because his father was in Azkaban, and probably because he felt utterly and completely alone.

Last summer, his father had been taken to jail for being a Death Eater, which was something of news to Draco, who`s father had been evil, a crook, but Draco had over looked the possibility of an actual Death Eater. His mother was a total mess, not so much over as his father was in jail as the fact this completely threw off their image. The `Malfoy' image of being a perfect pureblood family, sure they were evil, sure they thought they were better than the rest of the world, but that was their image. And, until last year, they had up held it quite nicely. Then his father got caught and his world started to fall apart.

It wasn't to say Draco didn't love his father, it was more to say that his father didn't love him. Luscious Malfoy was, probably, the most sneaky and evil person you could meet outside Voldemort himself. Most things seemed trivial to him, something to use or be tossed away. Black and white, dirt or gold, that was the way Luscious had seen things. His family, was something to use. His wife had given him an heir, something to continue things after he had died, and that's what Draco was. It was what he'd always been. Not a son, but an heir. An heir to an evil fame and dark world that he really wanted nothing to do with. Not that he wanted to be as knightly as Potter and his little band of golden goodies, but he did not want to be used by Voldemort, just as he did not want to be used by Dumbledore. This lack of enthusiasm, lack of care in general, did not please his father.

“I expect the best from you, Draco! Good grades in school, top of your class, Prefect, Head Boy, Quidditch star! All of it! No less Draco. You can't settle for less because I won`t settle for less, do you understand? I won't raise some…some…pureblood to be a mud blood,” his father had always said. Prefect, Head Boy, star of the Quidditch team, everything had to be perfect. His father manipulated, twisted, destroyed, created, everything Draco would need to get to the top, the top of something he didn't even want to be at the top of. He loved his father, but his father did not love him. Loved to use him? Yes. Loved him? No.

The bleach blonde teen got out of bed and walked over to the window, sitting on his trunk in front of it. For the longest time he looked out the window, the full moon glinting off his bright hair and eyes, and did nothing but think about why this had happened. Why any of it had happened. And each end was dead end or endless to the point that he didn't want to think about it. Why had his father disowned him? Why did his mother not care? What did he have to do to get his father to love him the way he'd wanted for sixteen years? Why were his parents just….so oblivious? He didn't form or shed a tear in the thought, instead his eyes fell onto the supply bag for his potions class. The black dragon hide pouch had a dim light to it as the moonlight that stretched across the room landed on it, and it was still open from his previous cleaning of his supplies. A silver blade used for cutting herbs and skinning bark gleamed in the light. Before he'd realized that he'd even got up, he was sitting on his bed with the blade in one hand.

Self mutilation had always seemed, always would be, always had been, something pointless. It made no sense to destroy yourself over emotions and problems you couldn't help. It was also self degrading and, in more ways than one way, made you weak. It let the world know you couldn't take it, so you marred your flesh in a way it had marred your mental and emotional states. Muggles had done it, but not many wizards or witches seemed too. Not that things were easier for wizards, but most had seen past the foolishness of it and realized, in the long run, all you'd have was a scar and the memory of how stupid you were. And that question of how you could have done something so foolish always burning in your mind.

Draco twirled the knife in his hand, the tip pressing lightly against his pointer finger as he twirled it, not pressing enough for it to pierce the flesh, just twirling it. The moonlight flashed across the room with each spin, and he watched it, mesmerized. He'd read books written from the point of view of people that had cut themselves. How the moments seemed so slow, parts seemed to blank out, all of it he knew. But feeling it was something entirely different. Twirling the knife in his hand, he felt like he had control for the first time in years. He didn't have to cut himself, but he could. For the first time in ages he had a choice about something and it felt good. Something was completely up to him, the weight of his choice pressed on his shoulders, making them slouch and hunch. It was a feeling of complete control over the next action, like the crucial point in a movie where you can go one way or the other, except this time Draco didn't have to watch someone make the choice for him. It was his turn to make the choice, and the weight of that choice felt like a joyous pressure on his lungs, his heart beat sped up then slowed then sped up again. He watched the blade twirl in his hand , the pointed tip never digging deeper into his hand. He heard his mother screaming about the news. His father's picture in the Daily Prophet along with a rather large article. She screamed at him, hurled objects in his general direction, as if it was his own fault for his father's mistake.

Another seemingly none existent moment blinked past and Draco was holding the edge of the blade to the underside of his forearm. His mother's voice numbed him from the brain outward, like a venom seeping through his pores and running through his veins, making him wonder if he could feel anything. If he slid the thin blade through his arm, would he be able to feel it? If he looked away, would he know he'd done it without looking back? Or would the blood be his only sign? He was convinced he was so numb he wouldn't feel it, so he looked away and closed his eyes. His face stayed calm as he felt the cool metal slice through the pale flesh of his arm, when he pulled it completely through he let out a breath that had been making his lungs ache.

It stung. Like a paper cut except deeper, as the air moved into it, it began to sting and the feeling lingered. The feeling of control and power rolled off his shoulders like pounding water cascading down his back and it made him shudder. He looked back at his arm, the knife still in his hand. Blood blossomed from the wound, it was small, deep and about an inch and a half long. Slicing horizontally across the pale of his under arm. The little spots of blood bloomed out from the wound, this self inflicted wound.

The moonlight shone off the blade just slightly, casting light on Draco's face, though he didn't seem to notice. He looked in the gleaming silver and saw not himself, but his father. Luscious Malfoy's disgusted face looked back at his son's. The face didn't move, but Draco heard his father's sickened voice in his head.

“What's this you've done now, you stupid boy? So you've turned to cutting yourself? How pathetic, I thought I'd raised you better than that Draco. Apparently even school and your mother is too much for you to handle, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised, you've always been a sorry sight,” his father's voice rang through his head. By that time, Draco had cut another thin but deep scratch into his arm, close to the first so the skin around them turned red with the irritation, “And after all your mother and I have done for you. Hogwarts, the Quidditch team, everything! And you throw it all away by doing something like this.”

Blood flowed form another, third cut deep in Draco's arm, just below the first. It mingled with the blood from the other two scrapes. Tears burned at his eyes as he looked down at the cuts, the back of his throat ached painfully as the light from the blade glinted onto his arm, it wasn`t from the pain of his arm. In the light the blood looked pale red, like it was already drying. Each time the weight of choice slid down his back with a sensation much like the first, though he didn't allow himself to shudder.

“You're going to cry now, Draco? Have you realized how utterly foolish you are? Is the pain of your own self-mutilation too much for you too handle? You haven't grown past the age of three,” his father said. The tears quivered to stream down the sixteen year old's cheeks, “How pathetic you are, so weak.”

“No!” Draco shouted and threw the knife, with his father's horrid face showing at him, which hit his trunk then clattered to the ground behind it. Crabbe grunted in his sleep, Goyle let out a rather large snore then rolled over, Draco's head shot to look over at them, being sure no one woke up. When he realized his roommates were still in too deep a sleep to notice his anguish he looked back down at the cuts in his arm. The skin around them had become red from the irritation of the knife, the blood had mingled and a drop had slipped off his arm and onto his thigh, soaking into his pajamas. Looking at the for scrapes, what he'd done to himself, the tears fell. They landed on his wounds and the salt stung them painfully, agitating them, but he only noticed the pain as a realization that he could still feel. He didn't move into hiccupping sobs, and didn't sniffle and cry out, tears just leaked out from his eyes and onto the cuts. Painfully washing away the red stain on his almost white skin. When it had almost all washed away, the tears and blood soaked into his pajamas, he moved under the covers of his bed, now having cooled off from his earlier attempts at sleep. He pulled the sleeve of his pajama top down over the cuts and shoved his arms under the covers as he lie back down.

When his head hit the pillow he found himself remarkably tired and yearning for sleep. His father's voice began to slip away from his mind, no longer ringing insults and name callings into his ear. When they had slipped to little more than a whisper in the back of his mind, Draco found himself able to sleep despite the stinging in his left arm and the weight of self-harm on his shoulders. If anything, that weight made him more tired, so when his eyes fluttered and closed he soon drifted off to sleep, the sun began to rise through the window behind him.