One shot
Draco Malfoy has a broken heart.
There are many things people believe to know about Draco Lucius Abraxas Malfoy. That he is a former Death Eater for example. That he is arrogant and stubborn. That he would have done anything to please his father in the past. That he would have even committed to an arranged marriage even though he was gay just to please his family. That he still was bearing the dark mark. That there were secrets about his private life he refused to share with anybody. That he had no heart.
All of those are true except the last one. Draco very well knows that he has in fact a heart. It might be tiny, black, rotten and shattered into pieces but he has a heart. A heart he is so ashamed of he cannot stand the thought of anyone ever seeing it. For Draco it is even impossible to imagine someone could actually want his dirty, foolish heart. So far, no one has ever wanted it so why should that ever change?
His heart broke the first time when he was only six years old. He used to have a cat he truly loved. In fact, it was not really his as his mother would have never allowed such a “filthy, useless creature” around the manor. Cats could scare the precious peacocks she was so proud of. Therefore, Draco had to keep his cat a secret. He had found her at the verge of the gardens close to the woods where his parents only seldomly went. It was lying on a patch of grass in the warm midsummer sun and meowing happily when he got closer.
It was a common street cat, nothing special except the three white shoes it had. The rest was pitch black fur that somehow looked dishevelled if that was even possible for cat’s fur. The bright green cat eyes watched the little boy carefully when he came closer carrying a stick in one hand to defend himself from whatever monster he was imagining lived behind the walls of the garden. His other hand clung around the shaft of his very first broom.
First, he was hesitant to even touch the furry creature rubbing against his legs but soon he could not resist. He was instantly charmed by the tiny creature. For the first time in his life a living being had made the first step to getting to know him without being forced to. He instantly fell in love with the creature and spent the rest of summer with sneaking out and feeding it. His imagination only managed to come up with the name “Kitty” but the cat did not seem to mind as long as Draco regularly fed it with the left overs from the dining table.
He even built her a tiny shelter out of sticks which he decorated with moss and flowers. Deep inside his tiny heart Draco was absolutely sure, Kitty had to be the luckiest cat in the world. Until one day she disappeared without leaving any trace. He was searching for her the whole day and even though he was scolded badly at night for coming home late he did the same thing the next day but Kitty was nowhere to be found.
On the third day he did the forbidden thing. He left the Manor by himself and flew to the little village. And there he found her, sleeping on the front porch of a stranger’s house that even had a cat door. He soon realized she had never actually been his cat. For her he was just another hand that would pet and feed her. After that summer Draco never wanted to have a pet anymore.
The first time a human being broke his heart is a story wildly known around the Wizarding community. It is about two boys getting their robes fitted for their first year at Hogwarts. Before Draco had ever met Harry Potter, he had already known they were meant to be best friends. Harry was the one who had defeated the Dark Lord, the reason uncle Severus was always gloomy so this boy had to be good. And Draco was a good boy, too. He could teach Harry so many things about wizards and the magical world and maybe Harry would even show him some Muggle things. Of course, his parents were never allowed to find out. They hated Muggles but Draco did not really get why.
When they finally met, Draco just repeated what his father had told him about Muggles and how bad they were. Back then he was really surprised, Harry did not like him at all. And Draco’s heart began to crumble. His father had always told him how important is was to become friends with the other boy and he could not do it.
When they met again in their first year, Draco was furious. That git actually preferred a Muggleborn and one of the Weasley over him! He had no other choice but to be mean. There was no other way to ensure he did not loose his face. Also, he had been told that it was common in the Slytherin house to show dominance when meeting a new friend. Potter did not seem to know this rule either. And Draco hated him for that.
He hated the Golden Trio for not noticing it was him who slipped the piece of paper into Ginevera’s book, the one that finally gave them the clue how to save everyone in second year. He hated that Potter was not able to understand the Slytherin way of making friends. This broke his heart for the second time.
In their third year stupid Hagrid and stupid Buckbeak preferred Potter over him once again. His time at Hogwarts should have when he rose to glory out of the ashes of the Malfoy house which suffered under the defeat of the Dark Lord. Draco should have become friends with stupid Potter to show the Wizarding world his family was still powerful and important. No matter how much he worked, how hard he tried to be the best, his father always only saw what Draco could not manage to do. That he was not able to get closer to Potter.
Even though he tried to find comfort in the arms of his classmate his thoughts always circled around that stupid Gryffindor with his ugly glasses, the terrible scar, the untidy hair and the hopeful smile. For Harry Potter everything seemed to become better when his world rapidly turned darker. Draco envied him so much. Potter was the hero he wanted to be. But that was not possible and the young boy realized that in this story he more and more was forced into the role of the villain instead.
In their fourth year he so much rooted for Cedric Diggory, the beautiful Hufflepuff boy with the genuine smile. What nobody knew was that they had even kissed, secretly in a corner of the dungeon. Rumours had spread, Draco was riding his broom the other way around and Cedric was curious. For the first weeks of the Triwizard Tournament, they would meet up every day and Draco would do his best to help Cedric. He had really fallen for the handsome boy and wanted nothing more than his “boyfriend” winning against Potter. Maybe. The thought, they would even make it official at the Yule ball.
Which of course they did not. Draco ended their little thing as he could not stand to be a secret, someone to be ashamed of. He felt like his heart was breaking back then. But only after Potter and Cedric had used the Portkey, did he learn what a true heart break felt like. Potter let his boyfriend die. Stupid Potter who was so far out of Draco’s reach did not manage to save the first boy that seemed to like Draco. Potter was not a hero he had failed. He had let the Dark Lord return into Draco’s life. He had not only broken the heart but the very hope of the blond boy to one day be happy.
After that his life changed. There was no hidden kissing anymore, no childish plots to get Potter’s attention, no light moments of laughter. After that the darkness came. He tried his best to stay save, joined Umbridge’s stupid quad. All of that only to stay save at Hogwarts, far away from his former home where now his father served the Dark Lord. In this year, Lucius Malfoy broke his son by offering his life in case he would fail. Which he did. Losing his father to Askaban did cost Draco his free will and the part of his heart that had always thought his family would do everything to protect him.
He was left with the Dark Mark burning on his arm and the promise to be responsible of the death of his whole family if he refused to do what he was told to. He did the only thing he knew to survive this situation: He pretended to like it. Everyone around him could have been a potential spy, except for Potter. So often did he drop the most obvious hints in front of his nemesis, hoping he would hear the hidden message, the plea to help him. But Potter did not, he left him alone. When the so-called saviour finally found him, Draco was too scared to ask him for help, instead he casted a spell. Never would he be able to forget Potter’s reaction.
The one last hope he had that everything would turn out just fine in the end attempted to hurt him, to kill him. And for the first time in ages Draco did not hate him for that. He understood how it must have looked for everyone outside his head. He indeed had become a villain. And what else was he left to do than to fulfil his destiny in killing Dumbledore.
Stupid, lying, old man who dared to give him hope once again, who promised protection at a time when there was no possible way Draco could change sides anymore. His father had led him onto a path of darkness and death and he had willingly followed him. There was no strand of hope, no imaginable solution to make him a member of society once again. He had failed the moment he did not manage to become friends with Harry Potter. And he failed his family again on the Astronomy tower where he could not kill Dumbledore. Instead his godfather Severus had to step in and sacrifice his freedom for him, useless Draco.
This terrible year had cost him the tiny rest of his childhood and the summer to come would demand the last piece of hope from him when his mother allowed Fenris to move in, to train and discipline her own son. His mother was the last person to break his heart. In order to protect him she had offered her son as a toy to a maniac. Draco stopped having a heart, he just became silent and suffered through everything. He knew as long as the Dark Lord was here, Potter was still alive, their only hope.
In this year Draco finally realized why he hated Potter so much, why he made him responsible for every bad thing that had happened in his life. Because he so much wanted to be part of that life, to be close to the skinny boy with the messy dark hair and the deep green eyes. Potter was his beacon of light. He was everything Draco would never be, everything Draco had ever wanted.
And then his chance had come. Potter’s life was in his hands. He could have fought for him, could have sacrificed his own life for the greater good but all Draco did was lie to give them a chance. And Potter used that chance. He saved them all. More, he saved Draco twice in a day and his stupid, stubborn, broken self which was too afraid of any act of kindness could not even manage to apologise. In the end Potter had won, he had indeed saved Draco and his whole family, had even testified for them. And still, there was no chance, they would ever share the same world. A worlds Draco used to love so much and felt nothing more than cold and emptiness for.
There was nothing left he could fight for; he had gotten what he wanted. The Saviour of the Wizarding World had saved him. All that was left back was a young man with an empty heart, no hatred in it, only hurt and shame.
This was when he decided to change, to finally get rid of the things he thought made him himself. He started by dying his hair the muggle way. He moved out of the Manor and fled into a city, Edinburgh, where he stayed for two years. Draco Malfoy did not buy another wand for two whole years. He distanced himself from everything in his past, his family, his magic. He drank too much, attended every party, fucked every guy that pretended to like him only to feel something else than the emptiness inside of him and the longing for a man he could have never had, the idea of a world he would never be part of.
He let his tiny, dirty, dark heart rotten inside of him, fed it with self-doubt and nourished the growing hatred for himself with hot cigarettes and cold booze combined with the touch of men who only used him for a short amount of pleasure. And the worst thing was he really, really thought he deserved all of it. There was no reason for him to treat his life as it would matter to anybody. Until he found her, or she found him. He could not remember.
It was one of those cold nights where he could neither remember what day of the week it was nor when he had eaten the last time. He was standing in front of the club, clinging on his cigarette as it the warmth of the tiny light could fill his cold insides. He had not managed to find someone to keep him company for that night and he was death scared of sleeping alone.
He saw he coming from quite a distance but did not even try to hide. He had not been the first of his friends to come and save him. He would simply send her away. He did not need a saviour. He had already had one, that was more than he deserved.
“You look like absolute shit, Draco. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” she said with a sharp tone, stopping right in front of him. He looked up to see her eyes full of kindness and was unable to say anything. He did not react when she pulled him into a deep hug. He just let her drag him after her into the streets of Edinburgh, away from the bright lights of the town centre and towards a residential area. She stopped from time to time to let him light another cigarette. Neither of them spoke a word until they arrived at her doorstep. He had known she was living around here for quite a while but never cared enough to actually go there and meet her. He cared for so little nowadays.
Inside he was greeted by familiar face, staring at him as blankly as he was. There were Nott, Zabini, Goyle and the Greengrass-sisters all sitting in the living room. None of them looked worse than he did but only a few did better, he could see. He wanted to turn on his heel and leave once again but Pansy’s soft grip forced him to stay.
“They need you, we need you here! Someone has to lead them,” she whispered into his ear.
Taking a second look around Draco noticed the tiny glimpses of hope in their eyes as they understood he was not leaving right away. It was true, they were as lost as he was with no place to stay. All of them were used to follow someone who knew what to do and now there was no such person left. Only him. And even though he did not know where to start, he decided to stay.
And this is where Draco Malfoy’s life finally has started to change into another direction. It took him half a year to overcome his desire for physical love from strangers and accept that this was not all he had to offer. He somehow found the strength to believe in a future surrounded as he was surrounded by those as hopeless as him. They all bore the same flaw, the Dark Mark on their forearm. It was his first official act as their leader to fight that, to transform it in no more than a memory. He did so by not covering the tattoo up but changing it.
What he finally did was as simple as it was effective. He put it in a frame, like a distant memory and wrote a promise below: Ego faciem meam metus – I will face my fears. What he did not expect was their reaction. First only Pansy then Daphne, Astoria, all of them did the same. They altered their marks in different ways. Some with flowers, some with birds, intricate designs. All of them surrounded this stain with beautiful colours. They promised each other to not waste their lives living in the past, to change, to become better.
And they did. Step by step.
Blaise managed to find a job in Belgium. Theo even got into the Ministery. Goyle moved back to Hogwarts and helped rebuilding the castle. For Pansy it was especially hard to let go of them but finally, she also found something to focus her energy on. She engaged into the Wizarding World once again to show them they were still there and that they would make a difference.
It was her who opened Draco the door to the Dark Artefacts unit. Even though all of the members were sceptical at first, they agreed on at least profiting from a former Death Eater. After a year all of them had moved out but him, Daphne and Astoria.
He even managed to from time to time stay in touch with his family and everything seemed to turn out for the better until the letter came, informing him he should quit his foolish bachelor life and marry. The young Greengrass sister for example. This phase had to come to an end.
This is when he noticed, he had actually started to like his new life. Sure, he still felt the emptiness from time to time but together with Astoria and Daphne he managed to live and laugh. This was not a phase; he would never pretend to be someone he was not again. When he showed up at the Manor for the first time in three years, his hair was already pink and his arms were both covered in the distinctive black lines of the labyrinth he felt his life had always been. His father threw him out immediately, still he could see his mother cry in the background, asking herself what had become of her precious son. They stopped talking again until Lucius died.
When Draco returned for the funeral, he had glamoured himself for the first time, only to make it easier for his mother. He consoled her as much as he could, even though he did not manage to spill a single tear for his father. The man he grew up looking up to had died several years ago in an ill-lead war for a terrible cause.
After that Draco had decided it was time to end his exile. He moved back to London and established his new life. The Greengrass sisters went with him but got their own place, well as long as they were both in town – which Daphne often was not due to her studies. He even started to from time to time actually go out with a Wizard but he never brought one home.
He did his best to ignore the rumours about Harry Potter, knowing the man who had always occupied his thoughts would never become part of his life, not like Draco wanted him to. And then Harry Potter did.
It all started so innocently with the other man starring at him and Draco felt this was maybe another chance he did not deserve so he went up and talked to him. What the Golden Boy asked him shook Draco’s world. His unreachable dream suddenly became a tiny bit more possible. Potter was not sure if he even liked girls. Draco did his best to keep the carefully crafted mask in place and not jump at him and hug him. Even though he was finally out and proud, he was not known to publicly demonstrate any kind of emotion. But he was so happy when Potter agreed on meeting up with him.
He did not tell Astoria about it immediately. He texted Pansy to come up with a clever plan, witty and funny things to say, a way to innocently flirt with the other man and check if there was the slightest chance. Pansy brought him back into reality when she asked if he was willing to show his true self to Potter. Which he would not dare. Still, he put it in the contract, just to be save.
Week after week he grew fonder and fonder of Potter who turned out to be so different to what he had imagined him in his lonely dreams. The dark-haired man was no hero, no knight in shining silver armour but seemed to feel just as lost as Draco did. Potter reacted so overwhelmed when he was flirted with, so shy and timid. Each time they met Draco could do nothing but fall for this man even more, even though he knew he would never have a chance. He still was Draco Malfoy, the Death Eater, someone not worthy of actually being loved. Not by someone like him.
Still, he stopped dating and fooling around the moment they started meeting regularly. He even stopped flirting with the Muggles when him and Astoria went out. Maybe this was what made her so suspicious she one day decided to track him down and found out about Potter. Harry. Harry Potter who on that very same day declared they were friends.
Harry who had just explained Draco hadn’t changed a bit. Harry whom he saw again in his own living room only a few days later. Harry who had discovered his well-kept secret and adapted to it, accepted it more positively than anyone else ever in his life. Harry who had secretly stolen himself into Draco’s life once again. Harry Potter, the only human being capable of reminding Draco Malfoy he very well had a heart left deep inside of him.
Until the day Daphne returned Draco had made himself believe that he was capable of just being Harry’s friend. That is was enough to finally have what he had dreamt of since he was a schoolboy. Until tonight he has considered himself happy. And then they went out.
So here he is now, sitting in his favourite chair in his favourite club, the place that always has felt like a second home, starring into his ninth cocktail glass, trying to ignore so hard what is happening on the dance floor just next to him. He has been as brave as humanly possible even when Harry’s drunk gaze had locked on his lips. He hasn’t said a word when Astoria has kissed the man of his dreams even though she knows.
But when this bad excuse of a blond man had dared to touch his Harry, it had been too much. Before having to witness someone doing what he was dreaming of for years he fled back to their table. Draco takes in a deep breath, trying to ignore the ache in his heart while fighting the urge to go out for a cigarette when he sees Harry returning as well. From the way the dark-haired moves, he can tell he is rather drunk. All of this is new to Harry and he only wishes him the very best. One day Draco will have to live with him having a partner. He just has hoped this day would not come so soon, that he would be enough just for a little while longer. But today is not about what Draco’s dirty, worthless heart feels, it is about giving Harry the reassurance to do whatever makes him feel happy.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” he manages to ask before Harry turns around and kisses him. Draco is too surprised to react in the first seconds. ‘This, this is it!’, his brain screams at him, releasing amounts of serotonin he never has thought his body would be able to produce. The chapped lips feel so good on his own and he can smell Harry. He smells like hot ground after a long overdue summer rain. He smells like hope, like light, like everything Draco has ever desired in his life. And still, his stomach tightens up into a hard ball of sadness and instead of kissing back he lets go off Harry, looking at the ground again.
“Sorry, I am not really a huge kisser, Harry,” his brain forces him to say even though his heart screams ‘liar!’ There is nothing is this or any other world, Draco would love to do more than kissing Harry Potter senseless right now. But he knows this is not about him. Harry is just finding himself and he, Draco, just happened to be there. Easy game. Someone who would not hurt him or get hurt. He manages a sad smile. He has everything he ever wanted. Harry is his friend and trusts him. He should be happy.
And this is when Harry Potter managed to crawl back into whatever is left of Draco Malfoy’s tiny, shattered heart and break it again by giving him the tiniest hint of hope.
