'Cause I'm Still Here

A Moment to Be Real

I have a question to the world.

Not an answer to be heard.

All a moment that's held in your arms.

I have a story to tell, but nobody to tell it to. I have a future to live, but nobody to live it with. And believe it or not, I have love to give.

But I don't have anybody to give it to.

I did, at one point. She was my everything, the thing that kept my brain working, my heart beating, my soul alive. I made the common mistake of putting everything of myself into her.

Then she left me.

I suppose it was my fault. Everything is, isn't it? "Draco Malfoy the Death Master," is what they called me. I'm just another sadistic bastard, someone existing to make other people's lives miserable, you know. At least, that's what she thought.

"You don't love me," she hissed at me as she stalked out the door. "And I will never love you again."

I guess I can't blame you, darling, that's my comment on the matter.

And what do you think you'd ever say?

I won't listen anyway.

You don't know me,

And I'll never be what you want me to be.

My girlfriend left me because I was too evil. My father disowned me because I wasn't evil enough. And my boss? He fired me because I was, well, Draco Malfoy. Do we see a pattern?

Every morning, I leave my dingy apartment to sit atop the hill behind the building and watch the sunset. The sun's my security blanket, you might say. Not only does it shine some light on my pathetic existence, it reminds me of her. I see those beautiful red sunbeams and I remember her identical hair that I loved. Of course, it's painful to see memories, but hey - Draco Malfoy can't feel pain, just the urge to plot death and destruction.

And what do you think you'd understand?

Ever since I was old enough to comprehend someone talking to me, my father educated me on the ways of the Malfoys. "Never cry!" Father would yell at me when I was barely four. "Real men don't cry, Draco, and I better never see you being anything less than a man!"

I'm a boy, I'm not a man.

I was taught to never let my emotions show. After she left me, I began to think Father was right. I had poured out my every emotion to her - maybe that had been my mistake.

Father? Right?

That's almost as funny as the time Pansy informed me she had names picked out for our first ten children.

When school started, I targeted Harry Potter. He seemed easy prey; he didn't know an inkling about the magical world, so it was quite simple to intimidate him. Snubbing Potter always made me feel more superior, and it took away the attention from me - in my seven years at Hogwarts, nobody noticed my insecurities, except her.

She used to tell me she loved me - I never said it back. I did love her; more than anything, actually - I just wasn't used to saying the L word. My father's voice rang in my ears ("Never let your emotions show!") as she waited for a response to the declaration.

I didn't give one.

Then, on the day she turned sixteen, six months after we began dating in secret, I wrote those three sacred words on a sheet of parchment and stuck it in her bag. Ever since then, it seemed that everything was going to be eternal, especially our mutual love.

You can take me, and throw me away.

My so-called friends were always strangers to me. Vincent and Gregory always stuck by me because nobody else would give them a second glance, Timothy hung out with me because our Death Eater fathers made us, and Pansy... well Pansy gave me the time of day because my family was filthy rich and she seemed to hope we'd get married someday.

God help us if that ever did occur.

And how can you learn what's never shown?

I do cry, sometimes. Nobody ever sees it. I collapse on my faded, moth-eaten sofa and just let the tears flow. All things in consideration, it makes me feel better. Not good by any stretch, but better. When you're being flooded in salty tears, you tend to become immersed in that instead of your past. You know, the painful one, where you are dismissed as a person with no feelings or ambitions or love or the need to be cared for and care for somebody.

And yes, I do feel pain.

Yeah, you stand here on your own.

More and more every day.

They don't know me, cause I'm not here.

I love the ocean. I've been there several times over the last few years, mostly just to escape from my lousy excuse of a house. Just to feel something different.

And I want a moment to be real...

Wanna touch things I don't feel.

Wanna hold on, and feel I belong.

I watch the waves creep up onto the shore where I sit. There's always a particular shiver about me when I'm near the ocean, though it's never cold. And a breeze, passing through my hair like the sky's breath.

And how can the world want me to change?

They're the ones that stay the same.

They don't know me...

I can sit by the ocean for hours, just listen to the caw of birds and the soft whooshing sound as the water comes up onto the sand.

Cause I'm not here.

It washes away the message I write in the sand, time and time again.

I'm not here.

Blaise invited me to dinner one day. He said that I needed to stop moping around and start living as life again. But I turned it down.

The last thing I need is pity.

And you see the things they never see.

All you wanted I could be.

I asked her a question before she left that night. "What do you want from me?" I yelled as she made her way past me for the door. "What do you want me to be?"

Her answer was quite simple. "I want you to be the person I fell in love with."

Who did you fall in love with? I don't even think you know. We were young, we were stupid, and not to mention we had viciously raging hormones. Were we even in love?

Hey, I'm Draco Malfoy. I don't know what love is, remember? So how could I tell?

Now you know me, and I'm not afraid.

And I wanna tell you who I am...

Can you help me be a man?

They can break me...

As long as I know who I am.

A Malfoy will never admit defeat - I suppose it's true. After she left, I figured that she would just come back to me, without so much as an apology needing to be uttered. But the weeks passed, and then months, and I realized she had meant what she had said,

"I don't need you anymore, Draco."

And I want a moment to be real.

Wanna touch things I don't feel.

Wanna hold on and feel I belong.

I never belonged, not really. Not unless you count belonging in Slytherin. "There's not a wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin," is what everyone says. I suppose I'm just here to continue the tradition.

And how can the world want me to change?

They're the ones that stay the same.

They can't see me, but I'm still here.

It does hurt when I hear what people say about me. Do I deserve it?

I wish someone would tell me.

They can't tell me who to be.

Cause I'm not what they see.

My mother once said something to me, and I've never forgotten it. I was young, probably around seven or so, and it was bedtime. I asked her if she loved my father.

Mother looked at me for a long while. For a second, I thought I had said something wrong. Then she answered. "Draco," she said, placing her hand on mine. "You came to me, and without your father, you wouldn't have."

"So you do love him?"

She looked at me carefully before turning out the light and leaving my room. "Good night, Draco."

Okay, so it wasn't the most satisfactory answer. It made a lot more sense to me than anything my father ever said about feelings and their danger to humanity.

And the world is still sleepin' while I keep on dreaming for me.

And their words are just whispers and lies that I'll never believe.

I admit that I haven't been the best person in the world. I've hurt some people, and I've hurt myself. But no matter what, I'm still human. I still think, speak, walk, respond and act like a human.

Can nobody see it?

And I want a moment to be real.

Wanna touch things I don't feel.

Wanna hold on...

I must belong somewhere.

And feel I belong.

They look past me on the street, as though I am a mere shadow. I don't mean anything to them.

But guess what? They don't mean anything to me either,

And how can they say I never change?

They're the ones that stay the same.

I'm the one now...

And I'm still here.

I've been Draco Malfoy my whole life. I had my entire future mapped out for me by the time I was three - I was to become a Death Eater and help the Dark Lord murder all the Mudbloods and Muggles.

But why? A waste of bloody time if you ask me.

I'm the one.

Cause I'm still here.

Some days, I just wish I could laugh, and smile, and go out with my friends, and take her to the ocean with me. I want to be normal, someone that nobody labels or rejects or laughs at.

Too much to ask? Somehow, I don't think so.

I'm still here.

I think I'm gonna finally visit my mother's grave. I'm going to thank her for putting up with my father for so long just so she could bring me up as a half-decent adult.

I'll send a letter to her, the first person I ever loved, the light of my life. I do love her, I know that now, and nothing could take her away from me. I know who I am, and I want her to know to.

And one for my father. Telling him to go jump in a lake and drown his ridiculous ideas about emotions being worthless.

Why?

I'm still here.

Simple really. Because every time I take a breath, see the sun, feel the wind... it just reminds me that this is my life and I have a choice on how to live it. And whenever I stare in the mirror, and hate what I see, I remember her face.

And her fiery red hair.

And her musical laughter.

And I smile. Because I'm Draco Malfoy, and I'm ready to face the world.

I'm still here.